#me posting this: the tiger he has escaped his cage

[wondrouswendy]

Why Fictional CaseyWake Is Interesting

Back by popular demand (one person asking me to continue my essay), I will continue promoting my Fictional CaseyWake agenda. The Fictional CaseyWake tiger has escaped its cage (and is doing just fine, if a little tortured).

DISCLAIMER: While some of this post involves media analysis, I am not an expert by any means. I am just a fan interpreting things. Don't take what I say as gospel. Also, I am only working with canon presented to us through the video games.

Further, this post is not to discredit or attack FBI Casey/Alan Wake. This is just my way of explaining why this other version of CaseyWake is interesting to me. Don't come at me with a pitchfork.

As a reminder, this post was made with fun in mind.

With that said, this will be a much longer post than those I usually make, so buckle up buckaroos.

I. What's the Deal With Fictional Casey?

The Casey we meet in the Dark Place in Alan Wake 2 is not the same as FBI Agent Alex Casey. There are certainly parallels between the two men, they of course share the same name, the same face, the same voice, a handful of the exact same dialogue lines, but their perspectives on life, Alan Wake, and everything in between is extremely different.

In Abhi Jha's interview with Sam Lake, Lake describes how he decided to revive his love of hardboiled fiction through the Casey we see in the Dark Place. Alan has received visions he doesn't understand of the real Alex Casey which he has then interpreted and curated into becoming his own character named Alex Casey. At the time of this creation, Alan believes Casey came from his imagination. We later learn in Vision 02 that Alan was receiving visions of the real Alex Casey as his inspiration. In Lake's words, this is "an echo of Casey he has molded... turning the knobs more, going more into that hardboiled inspirations." He is a "fictional character coming to life" who is different than the "actual FBI Agent in Washington with Saga who does have similarities and potential of being pushed in that direction but not quite. More three dimensional. With real worries and all of that."

From this, we can extrapolate that Fictional Casey is an exaggerated version of the real Alex Casey and not necessarily a one for one copy of him. Fictional Casey's worries are therefore extremely different than his source material's worries. They live in two entirely different contexts and have vastly different people around them. FBI Agent Alex Casey had an ex-wife and currently has a partner he has a close relationship with. Fictional Casey essentially only has Alan.

Also, Fictional Alex Casey has a little hair floof whereas FBI Casey does not. Their wardrobes are completely different. FBI Casey prefers coffee as his poison of choice; Fictional Casey prefers whiskey.

II. Tropes of Interest

A. Hatemance/Enemies to Lovers

If you’re looking for a hatemance, the pairing has you covered given the whole “Alan killed Casey off for shock value” situation. There’s sex appeal in that alone, but I also think there’s this tender bond between Alan and his character which I will continue to go through later. Alan calls on Casey for help in the Dark Place later on. Maybe it’s on a subconscious level, but it’s certainly there.

In the QR code videos released by Remedy and added into the remastered version of the game, Alan brings up the importance of his character, Alex Casey several times.

In Vision 01, he describes how the Dark Place tapped into his "unconscious mind." Taking things and twisting them to ultimately create a mystery for him to unravel. He specifically writes, "I needed a detective to guide me. Echoes of Casey haunted me."

From Vision 02, he writes, "I saw visions carried by the ebb and flow of different dream states, they seeped in from the reality beyond, things I had a connection to but also things I couldn't possibly know. I used them in my writing to make it real so the parts that weren't would become so. And there were visions that I knew were not real. Ideas I had lost. Often of Casey. I had written about him for years. I use them as well."

In Initiation 2: Casey from Alan Wake 2, Fictional Casey introduces himself with no aggression. To me, in this scene, he is almost acting like a questgiver, an NPC you'd meet in a game whose purpose is to be the guide for the protagonist. There's no immediate malice. In fact, he sacrifices himself to the monster that threatens them.

Casey, who's supposed to be the hero in the narrative, is killed by the Dark Presence. Alan doesn't protect him. You could argue that Casey's final lines of dialogue in this chapter are a moment in which he's breaking through the narrative, implying that he's tired of being used as cannon fodder to protect Alan and to further him on his quest to escape the Dark Place.

B. The History Between Alan Wake and Fictional Casey

For six books, Alan exclusively wrote Alex Casey's story. I would argue that most authors do not stick with a character as long as this. Authors tend to write trilogies if they stick with one character. Often, authors tend to write a story with a character for the course of one novel and then in their next novel, they may shift that character to the background to let another character take the spotlight (this happens all the time in romance novels, for example).

For Alan to write six books worth of Alex Casey, he must have enjoyed it in some way. Something must have appealed to him. His character, the universe, the mysteries. However, something changed with Alan to cause him to not only kill off his star character, but to then proverbially shit-talk him during an interview with Harry Garrett (though the argument could be made that because this interview is shown in a dream sequence that it isn't necessarily something we can reliably trust happened in the real world; if this has been confirmed to be real canonically, please feel free to tell me).

You could argue that Alan killing off Casey in The Sudden Stop threw his marriage and his life out of control. Alan experiences writer's block because Casey's gone. Now this could simply be because the well of inspiration with real life Casey ran dry, because FBI Agent Casey's life had become warped because of Alan's novels.

Alan spends an undefined time with his character Alex Casey. Six novels worth and then thirteen years in the Dark Place. That's a lot of time together.

C. Hurt/Comfort, Angst, and Whump

Alan hurt Casey, personally. He killed him off. Not once, not twice. Several times. He sacrifices Casey over and over.

Casey's echoes in Alan Wake 2 are familiar to Alan. They guide him along to create suitable plots for his escape attempts.

Even though Alan has hurt Casey so much, Casey can't help but assist him with escaping the Dark Place. Even when Casey begins to question his existence, even when Casey starts breaking the fourth wall, he doesn't

This lends itself to juicy Hurt/Comfort, Angst, and Whump potential.

D. Alan Wake: Dude in Distress

The bodyguard trope. Casey arguably functions as a bodyguard to Alan in the Dark Place. Casey is always there for Alan.

I hear what you're saying. Is it because he has no choice in the narrative? I would argue no. He has a choice. We see moments where Casey questions his state of being, he breaks the fourth wall. He acknowledges his status as a fictional character as Alan leaves Zane's theater. He knows there will always be another case for Casey. he walks off into the night's loving arms and cheekily says, "Roll credits."

In my interpretation, there's a part of Casey that enjoys this life, fucked up as it may be sometimes.

E. Forbidden and Star-Crossed Romance

There is potential for forbidden romance between these two. After all, you aren't supposed to fall in love with your creation. It isn't real in the physical sense.

If Fictional Casey isn't important to Alan, if he isn't a threat, then why does the Dark Presence continue to kill off Casey? Why does it continue to separate them, as it does in Initiation 5 when Scratch takes over Alan's body to shoot Casey? It knows that Casey is Alan's guardian angel in the Dark Place. It knows that Casey has been useful in creating plot points to help Alan figure it out.

Further, there is the potential for no happy endings with these two. Of course, that could be a turn off for some and a delicious morsel for others.

F. Sexual Tension

In culmination, these elements of their relationship create sexual tension between Alan and Casey. There's so much potential in their history for romance. Charged moments in the Dark Place.

One could argue there's a will they/won't they moment in Initiation 5 - Room 665 when Casey is pinning Alan to the alley wall. Freud did say, after all, that gun's have phallic imagery. Take that as you will.

On a more superficial level, Alan can shape his fictional character to be his vision of the ideal man, the ideal partner. Or, conversely, his ideal fling. His ideal hot mess. Maybe Alan's version of the manic pixie dream girl is a hardboiled detective.

III. The Act of Creation as a Form of Love of the Self, the Creative Process, and the Creation Itself

Prepare yourself for a bumpy ride through my philosophizing. Sorry in advance. I'm sure others could dive deeper into these particular subtopics better than I could, but I want to just throw this spaghetti at the wall and pray something sticks.

A. Love of the Self

Loving yourself is hard. It's a platitude to say it, but it's true.

Alan and his character Casey do share some qualities. Depression, alcohol abuse. Often as writers, we do draw inspiration from ourselves to add dimension to our characters. Alan doesn't need to be a hardboiled detective himself to share similarities to his fictional character. Alan is destructive, angry, confused, self-loathing, and dysfunctional all throughout Alan Wake 1 and 2. Much of Alan's worst qualities are in Fictional Alex Casey.

In Initiation 5, as Casey lays dying from Alan/Scratch shooting him, he says,

"I was dead tired. I just wanted it to be over. It was all my fault."

Circling back to Alan's writer's block, arguably Alan being in the Dark Place is Casey's fault to an extent. Something happened to cause Alan to want to quit telling Casey's story. Perhaps if Casey had continued to be a source of inspiration, Alan would have continued writing his books?

Going back further, if Alan had never created Casey, his life could have taken an infinite amount of turns. But because Casey came to life through Alan's writing, because of their history, Casey feels some degree of responsibility for how events in the Dark Place have shaped up.

Continuing, he says,

"...I'd had this dark place in my head for so long. Sometimes I'd forget the pain was there. Like it was the way you were supposed to feel. I was not in a dark place. I was the dark place, the source of it all, the vessel. Me and the writer, we were the same."

Casey's final monologue in this chapter echoes sentiments Alan is experiencing. The overall metaphor of the Dark Place as not necessarily a physical or supernatural realm, but a state of mind. Some days are better than others. Some days, you're used to your pain that it feels natural.

This then relates to Fictional Casey's potential guilt. What broke down between Alan and his character to cause Alan to want to kill him off? Did writing Casey's story leave Alan feeling too depressed? Too gloomy as he tells Harry Garrett? Was it early signs of writer's block? A lack of direction?

Relating back to Alan, Alan and the Dark Place are largely one. He finds out Scratch is him. Scratch is Alan + the Dark Presence. Alan/Scratch has been the one haunting Alice, tormenting her. He is the source of it all.

Thus, there is a recursive relationship where Alan's self-loathing feeds Casey and vice versa.

However, there are positive elements of Alan's character in Fictional Casey and vice versa. Casey solves mysteries, he protects others, even at risk to himself. Alan has goodness inside him, but it is cloaked by his own self-doubt and self-loathing.

Alan so badly wants to be the hero all throughout Alan Wake 1 and 2 to save Alice (from the Dark Place and later Scratch), but he's struggling against his own narrative and the meta narrative at large. Fictional Casey is arguably the idealized hero-fantasy he has for himself, which is later realized when he sacrifices himself. He willingly goes back to the Dark Place to save Saga, her daughter, and FBI Casey from the Dark Place and its jailor, the Dark Presence.

B. Love (and Hatred) of the Creative Process

To quote a great tumblr post for the 100th time, the act of creation is like sticking your hand in a cylinder of irradiated water full of piranhas. At the bottom is a button, that when pressed, will give you the best orgasm of your life. However, the irradiated water is obviously toxic and the piranhas are constantly biting. In short, the act of creating something is a struggle. But when you manage to hit that button...

Ask any writer (and any creative person at large), there's nothing more enjoyable than being inspired and filled with energy. Writing a new story is exciting. It's often why people tend to have a backlog of WIPs, because sometimes creatives are always chasing after the next new rush of endorphins. Sometimes we fall in love with a universe, sometimes it's a character, an idea of ours.

On the other side of the coin, hating the creative process, I'll quote a tweet from one of my favorite Youtube video essayists, "I hate literally every step in the filmmaking process. The only thing I hate more than making a film is not making a film." Similarly, most authors state that the worst thing about the writing process is not writing.

Alan can't write because he has writer's block, and he has writer's block because he killed off his character, and he hates that he isn't creating. See the vicious cycle? He can't psych himself up for whatever new book he was supposedly going to write prior to the events of the first game.

C. Love of the Creation Itself

Even in Alan's nightmares, he has copies of The Sudden Stop stuffed into his car's trunk like that meme about the person who trips and has pictures of their senpai shoved up their sleeves.

Art is subjective. It's tailored to our personal experiences and vision. Alan (and on a meta level, Sam Lake) enjoy hardboiled detective fiction. Alex Casey is the realization of that love come to life.

Understandably, there are elements of this style of relationship which are not equal in power. We see these elements repeatedly with how Alan uses, yes even abuses Fictional Casey to further his own goals.

Yes, you could say that loving your own creation (no matter the medium) is masturbatory. It's self-aggrandizing. But loving something you put time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears just feels good. We as creators have a right to feel proud of our works.

IV. Interesting Parallels

I'm sorry to all my English major friends for the fumbling I'm about to commit with literary analysis.

A. Biblical

It wouldn't be a deep dive analysis if we didn't bring up the Bible. Of course I'm talking about God and Adam. Anyone creating their own original universe with their own original characters is playing God. Alan creates Alex Casey through the divine act of turning his imagination into tangible writing.

Will someone PLEASE draw Alan Wake and Fictional Casey in the vein of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam already???

B. Literary

John Milton's famous lines from his work Paradise Lost:

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?

Of course, Paradise Lost is an epic poem about the story of Genesis, but this stanza in particular, spoken by Adam to God can easily be applied to Fictional Casey towards Alan. Casey didn't ask for any of this. He didn't ask to be created, he didn't ask to become Alan's guide in the Dark Place.

I’m a sucker for Frankenstein by Mary Shelley so I regret to inform everyone we're bringing it up.

I think there’s some Frankenstein/His Monster vibes with this flavor of CaseyWake. I think there were moments where Casey resented coming to life, certainly much later on as he lives and dies over and over.

From his dying moments in Initiation 2:

"I remembered dying in this alley in a dream I had. He was just gonna keep killing me here, loop by loop. You're not gonna get what you want. You think you know. You know shit. You don't really wanna know. You're gonna get what's coming to you."

And then from Frankenstein:

"Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good – misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."

Unlike his real counterpart, Fictional Casey has no one other than Alan. He has no friends, no found family. Arguably, even FBI Casey wants nothing to do with his fictional self. He is completely reliant upon Alan. I suppose you could say we the audience are his only true friend, as we function as voyeurs into his fictional life, much like Alan (but we seem to want to take better care of him than Alan does).

C. Mythological

Pygmalion and Galatea.

The Greek sculptor Pygmalion fell in love with his sculpture of a woman. He asked the goddess Aphrodite if his sculpture could become real, and somehow the goddess of love was like "yeah sure bud." The sculpture, Galatea, comes to life, and they live happily ever after.

(This is the part where I'll make a brief Weird Science shoutout since it's a somewhat similar premise).

V. Conclusion

If you have somehow made it this far, thanks for reading.

There are likely things I've forgotten that I wanted to talk about at some point. Maybe I'll have to make a part two if I end up remembering them.

Hopefully my essay will help inspire others to create fanworks featuring this particular version of CaseyWake. I would love to hear what others think, so please don't hesitate to share your thoughts!!

And finally,

[djpurple3]

tigers are HARD. im going to bed. enjoy my shitty tiger

[wangxianficrecs]

Sweeties, it’s time for

I’m In The Mood For A Fic Where…

_______

1.  Ahhh mojo your blog makes my world go round and back and around again.  [You’re so sweet!] I was wondering if you could help me out with your next "I'm in the mood for a fic where".. I'm looking for two types of fics

A) fics in which WWX regains his core somehow (either by working on it, divine intervention, core sharing, anything!!) I so desperately want my boy to have his precious and favourite sword back (◡ ω ◡)

B) fics where WWX (or LWJ) *almost* marries someone else.

Thank you for your help!!! (~￣³￣)~❤️ ~ @akyra-talanoa​

1a.

nothing gold can stay by rikke (M, 10k, wangxian, my post)

❤️Ghosts Shouldn't by ShanaStoryteller (not rated [G], 15k, wangxian, my post)

the path to heaven / immortal wangxian by lightningalwaysreturns (E, 51k, wangxian)

Chimera by nirejseki (T, 18k, wangxian)

Righteous at a Cost by thunderwear (G, 21k, wangxian, my bookmark)

Different Paths to the Same Route by JustAWanderingBabbit (T, 184k, 3zun)

24 Hours by tailor31415 (E, 6k, wangxian)

Core-Thieving Hand by x_los (T, 5k, wangxian)

Field Trips with Wei Wuxian by antebunny (G, 43k, wangxian)

1b.

to swim through the fires by littledust (M, 37k, wangxian)

❤️Neatly Arranged by thunderwear (T, 46k, wangxian, my post)

Rebound Betrothal by mondengel (not rated (G), 2k, wangxian, my post)

History Will Call Us Wives by silvermarie (E, 17k, wangxian)

today was a smoking sky by typefortydeductions (E, 38k, wangxian)

~*~

2.  hello! any recs wangxian modern au/mpreg? please and thank you!

Here’s my mpreg post (mostly current) and also

Brilliant Mistake by brooklinegirl (E, 54k, wangxian, my bookmark)

Winter Moon, White Rabbit by nachttour (E, 62k, wangxian, WIP)

Stale Spice, Sandalwood, and Nests by Tyongslips (M, 18k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

3.  Hello!! This might not be specific enough to find anything, but I was looking for modern wangxian fics that have a very distinct italicized 'oh' moments together? Like both of them or either of the pair doing something that makes them suddenly realize

every time we kiss i swear i could fly by sarahyyy (T, 3k, wangxian, my post)

【那夏天的我們】a stroke of fate by puddingcatbeans (G, 60k, wangxian)

not in so many words by jaws_3 (T, 18k, wangxian, my post)

~*~

4.  In the mood for fics where WWX is genuinely afraid of LWJ, believing that he will kill him/hurt him/cast him out/haul him back to Gusu for punishment; with emphasis on LWJ's reaction when he realizes and it hits him like a sack of bricks, and ideally on his efforts to regain WWX's trust. Not looking for something where LWJ really does wish WWX significant harm, but it's ok if he has well-intended ideas that he doesn't realize would hurt him. Any time period, canon version, or AU is good. Example: decay by antebunny.

~*~

5.  Hi there! First of all thank you for making such a helpful blog. I have been reading tons of great stories due to you.  [I’m so glad!] Secondly I would love to read a fic (a) where lwj is a single dad and then meets wwx (b) Best modern au fics with lots of angst. Thanks!!! ~ @pastashouldbeeatenwithafork​

5a. 

❤️A Flower That Blooms In Adversity by thunderwear (M, 62k, wangxian, WIP, my post)

like wildflowers (we grow) by moonsteps (T, 80k, wangxian)

say it's here where our pieces fall in place by Lirelyn (E, 69k, wangxian)

plant a little happiness (let the roots run deep) by fleurdeliser (E, 48k, wangxian)

tear out the thread one by one from your skin (’til your bones feel embarrassed by all the attention) by lightningalwaysreturns (E, 41k, wangxian)

paint smears on sunny days by SnowshadowAO3 (E, 54k, wangxian)

love thy neighbor by wincechesters (M, 7k, wangxian)

No Need to Change a Tune by yeolinski (T, 10k, wangxian)

5b.

Tempo Rubato by Spodumene (E, 108, wangxian, my post)

A Sequence of Coming Outs by kippalittlefox (M, 24k, wangxian)

new york, i love you by Anonymous (T, 7k, wangxian)

leading tone by silencemostofall (G, 32, wangxian)

An Ocean Between Us by feenwitch (E, 11k, wangxian)

总有一天; a place to hide (can’t find one near) by yiqie (E, 76k, wangxian, *mind the tags!*)

me and you, always and forever by fyredancer (E, 150k, wangxian)

Momentum Deferred by DisasterBiAlert (T, 13k, wangxian, my post)

After the Final Rose by azurewaxwing (E, 55k, wangxian)

there's no promised goodbye here by Anonymous (T, 54k, wangxian)

defective requiems by Misila (M, 9k, wangxian)

❤️Common love isn't for us by feyburner (M, 8k, wangxian, my post)

twice by Misila (T, 8k, wangxian)

one good thing by Yuu_chi (T, 27k, wangxian, my post)

~*~

6.  Hey! Can you rec some fics with wangxian being in cloud recesses or modern au of college?? Thanks!

I have tags for #students at cloud recesses and #college/university au

~*~

7.  Would you happen to know any fics where lqr and wwx actually get along and have a good relationship? Lqr the scholar he is and wwx the inventor/genious ???? There are a lot of possibilities there.  Thank you so much have a great day and stay hydrated!!!

❤️To have and to hold by Moominmammashandbag (M, 79k, wangxian, my post)

❤️to arrive late is better than not to arrive at all by Moominmammashandbag (M, 35k, wangxian, my post)

Just Say Yes by edenwolfie (M, 312k, wangxian)

Post-war baby! by like_a_bird_that_flew (E, 23k, wangxian, WIP)

Righteous at a Cost by thunderwear (G, 21k, wangxian, my bookmark)

~*~

8.  Hello! I love your fic recs and the hard work you do! I've discovered so many new favourites thanks to you! [Yay!] I was wondering if you know of any fics where they're shapeshifters or some such? Animals or wing-fics or something similar? ❤

I have an official tag for #animal transformation, and on my AO3 wangxian collection (which returns more search results than tumblr) here is the search for shapeshifter, and wingfic

over forests and mountains by beechtree (T, 9k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

9.  hii do you know any fics that focus on lwj and lxc and their relation?? thanks <33

❤️Begotten by ecorie (G, 37k, wangxian, my post)

Brotherly Concern by Ibijau (G, 11k, wangxian, my post)

~*~

10.  hellooo! do you know any fics where jiang cheng finds a-yuan instead of lwj? thank you for all your recs btw, they're super helpful!!! [Thank you!]

grieve the living by Misila (M, 161k, wangxian)

Overflow the autumn pools by Mhalachai (T, 74k, jiang cheng & lan wangji)

~*~

11.  I love your blog! Thank you so much for all the wonderful recs! [Thank you!]  I don't suppose you know of any fics where WWX is a non-human entity of some sort, but presents or is disguised as a human? (Or maybe he even thinks he is human?)

Cruise the tags mentioned above in #8, too.

❤️Spellbound by Latios (T, 37k, wangxian, my post)

When fish soar by mondengel (G, 2k, wangxian, my post)

Breathing Firestorm by ladyshadowdrake (M, 111k, wangxian)

flame and rust by cl410 (M, 29k, wangxian, WIP)

❤️The Tiger has Destroyed his Cage by updatebug (G, 55k, wangxian, my bookmark)

Magical Marriage Ribbons by starandrea (M, 376k, wangxian)

Ever Distant Shores by fuddy_duddy (rainier_day) (T, 69k wangxian, WIP)

~*~

12.  Hiii do you know any fics where wwx or lwj OR wangxian leave the cultivation world/retire/grow old together away from cultivation drama? Something like And They Have Escaped The Weight of Darkness by cosmicmilktea , All that is solid melts into air by huxiyi , and that fic where post resurrection wwx just decides to not bother with dafan mountain and opens a flower shop:  focal, filler, and line by bosbie.

Dan Tian / Heaven by ArchiveWriter (T, 20k, wangxian, WIP)

The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Moonpuddles (T, 3k, wangxian)

Pair of Swallows, you and I~ by Moonpuddles (T, 13k, wangxian, series in progress)

~*~

13.  Hello! Do you know any fics where wangxian has some incompatibility issues/dysfunctional relationship that isnt because of canon typical one braincell wwx, but because of more structural things like their mental age gaps, how wwx will prolly hate cloud recesses after the honeymoon bliss is over etc. Generally fics that show wangxian having to work to build the relationship

~*~

14.  Hi! Any wangxian onlyfans au fics? I read For a Good Time, Call by ScarlettStorm and the ongoing sequel KILF (Knits I'd Like To Fuck in) and those were so good!!! I'd like to find more similar fics!

Temptation's Mask by threerings (E, 58k, wangxian, camboy wwx)

A ghost by the light of the phone by shibrogane (E, 10k, wangxian)

~*~

15.  Hey, do you have any fics where lxc doesn't like (or outright despises) wwx?

❤️to arrive late is better than not to arrive at all by Moominmammashandbag (M, 35k, wangxian, my post)

I don't like your boyfriend by lazulisong (G, 3k, wangxian, my post)

~*~

16.  Do you know of any fics where the Lan Elders (unsuccessfully) try to make Lan Zhan marry someone other than Wei Ying?

Lie Open To One Another by levament (M, 41k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

17.  Hii! Do you know any fics that similar to Ardent Desires by crestre / Baby Of Mine by pupeez4eva ? I've been searching for it and want to read fics that similar to those so bad. I hope you and your followers can help me! Thankyouuu

The Trouble with Talismans: a Treatise on Time-Travel by Young Master Lan Xiaohui (Age 6) by stiltonbasket (G, 17k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

18.  Do you know any wangxian fics where either one or both of them are models/actors/musicians/famous in some way?

The Fault in Our Stars by Vamillepudding (T, 18k, wangxian, my post)

Patient came so hard from prostate exam he kicked me in the dick by Hades_the_Blingking (e, 17k, wangxian, my post)

An ocean in a drop (not a drop in the ocean) by dea_liberty (E, 10k, RPF, yizhan, my post)

how to fall in love with a catfish: a guide by wei wuxian (disaster rat) by Anonymous (T, 55k, wangxian, my post)

Make It Count by wearing_tearing (E, 47k, wangxian, my bookmark)

❤️Love wakes me by dea_liberty (e, 46k, wangxian, my post)

life, drama and action by Akai__hana (G, 13k, wangxian)

call me, beep me by myung (T, 39k, wangxian)

Rest by sassybluee (T, 115k, wangxian)

~*~

19.  hello, i'm searching for a fic where wwx like... transmigrates into mdzs/cql? like i think there were a couple of them and but i can't find them for some reason?

Untitled. by c11to (M, 61k, wangxian, WIP)

[side-shawty]

Don’t Hate Me

Fandom: DC 

Type: one-shot

Prompt/Summary: “Hello! Can I request a Damian Wayne x reader where the reader can communicate and control animals, so when the batfam sees her fight for the first time, they're like, hella surprised and Dami is very pleased that the reader treats the animals so kindly? 💜💜👽”

Pairing(s): Damian Wayne x Reader

Requested? YES by @comicnerd557​

I mostly focused on the controlling part but the communication is implied. I hope you enjoy :)

-Duckie

“Come on Y/N just show me what your power is please~” Dick begged for what felt like the millionth time today. Ever since Damian had let it “slip” that you had an ability that even he didn’t know about all of the Wayne boys had become curious.

“Just give us a hint,” Tim pressed as you sat on one of the sofas, getting ready for a post-patrol movie night.

“I’m telling you she’s not going to give it up,” Damian said as he sat beside you and wrapped an arm around your shoulders, you were quick to snuggle into his side.

“How about this,” Jason began settling into one of the armchairs, “If we guess right or even pretty close then you have to tell us that we’re right, okay?”

“Deal,” you said as Dick started the movie but it was pointless considering they spent the entirety of it trying to guess at your power. They were close a couple of times but not enough to call them right.

“Okay can you, um, teleport people?” Dick asked as the credits rolled.

“Nope,” you said, popping the ‘p’ and repositioning to place your head in Damian’s lap.

“Alight how about —“ Jason started but was interrupted as all of your phones began to chime with a crime alert from Bruce, who was already suited in the cave when you all arrived, he probably hadn’t taken it off.

“Sorry to interrupt movie night but I could use a hand with something,” Bruce said, “Get suited up, I’ll brief you in 5.”

“So much for a quiet night,” you said before you all suited up for a second time that night.

When you all got back there were already images and CCTV footage on the Batcomputer and Bruce didn’t hesitate to begin.

“At approximately 3:45 AM Killer Croc and Gorilla Grodd released all the animals from the Gotham Zoo from their cages but have yet to release them into the city. They’re trying to wait until sunrise for their ‘animal liberation.’

“The police are there but it seems they have lions and tigers barricading the entrances. We’ll go in, take down Crock and Grodd, and put the animals back. Hopefully before breakfast,” he finished and you saw Damian’s hands become fists, you knew he had a soft spot for animals and it was one of the reasons you hesitated to tell him about your powers.

You controlled them, for lack of a better word. Yes, they might have been drawn to you but like Grodd, it didn’t take much for them to bend to your will.

“One last thing,” Bruce continued, “You’ll be needing these. Attach them to your temples and Grodd won’t be able to get inside your head.” He looked to you, “Y/N, you’ll be needing this too,” Bruce said and handed you an amplifier. You looked at him and shock but he only winked at you.

Damn, he really was the world’s greatest detective. 

“What why does she get a special gadget?” Jason asked.

“It probably has to do with her powers, idiot,” Tim retorted.

“Shut up replacement. Y/N you told B about your powers before us? I’m hurt,” he said throwing a hand over his heart as you all made your way to your vehicles.

“Let’s be honest, nobody tells B anything,” you said before hopping onto your cycle and revving the engine.

———

The Zoo was controlled chaos when you got there. Gordon already knew what Grodd’s powers were so he had fewer men than with a regular villain. Just in case the gorilla somehow managed to be able to control the animals and the police there wouldn’t be too many at his disposal.

You split into two teams Bruce, Tim, and Dick would focus on Killer Croc whilst you, Damian, and Jason went after Grodd. They had barricaded themselves in the middle of the zoo along with crocodiles and gorillas because they truly were that cliche.

Killer Croc put up a good a fight as ever but he couldn’t do much when Grodd turned on him and forced the animals to defend only himself. Croc went down cursing Grodd’s name as Batman and Nightwing left to take him to the authorities.

“Now that the nuisance is out of the way I can focus my energy on getting rid of all you pests,” he said and began his onslaught. You fought but waited for Batman’s signal before hitting the amplifier on your neck and stretching your powers.

“Stop,” you spoke, holding a hand in front of Grodd and he immediately went lax before you.

Damian and his brothers also froze as Batman and Nightwing returned to the battlefield.

“What the hell?” Grodd spoke angrily, “What are you doing to me girl?!” He screamed at you.

“You’re strong Grodd but your downfall is that you’re also an animal and I control animals,” you told him, a smug smile on your face as he roared at you.

“Silence,” you commanded and he found himself unable to speak.

“Take his helmet, Robin, it’s still controlling the animals but they can’t move if he can’t. The cuffs are on my belt,” you told him and Damian quickly removed it and disabled it. Within minutes he was in police custody with the proper utilities to ensure he wouldn’t be using his powers any more tonight.

“Nice work Y/H/N,” Batman complimented and you smiled at him.

“Couldn’t have done it without this,” you told him tapping the amplifier. 

“Feel free to keep it. Now let’s get these animals back in their enclosures,” Batman said and you all instantly got to work.

You took the lead mostly, coaxing the larger animals back to where they should be but stopping often to pet them or appreciate how beautiful they were. At some point, Robin had joined you in or rather stared watch you as you were getting the polar bears back to their place.

Even though you weren’t looking at him you could feel his eyes on you from your crouched position rubbing at the polar bear cubs belly. 

“What?” You asked as the cub rolled over and stood up to join its mother behind the gates.

“So this is your power? It is truly“ you braced yourself for the worst, “amazing,” Damian finished and you had to do a double-take.

“Huh?” You said dumbly, not expecting that at all.

He grabbed your hand so you stood next to him but still avoided eye contact.

“Why did you not tell me sooner?” Damian questioned softly, releasing your hand because you were still in uniform even if your only witnesses were animals.

You thought about beating around the bush or making a joke of it but instead, you said, “I thought you’d hate me.”

“Hate you?” He said, incredulous, so much so that you spared a glance at him and suddenly you took interest in anything but him.

“Yes, I’m no better than Grodd,” You said fingers grazing over the feathers of a passing peacock.

“Tsk, I assure you that you are not similar to that overgrown monkey in the slightest. Let’s go home,” he said and you nodded.

——

When you got back you took a long shower and didn’t see Damian again until you found him reading on his bed as the sun rose.

He looked at you, all smiles as if nothing had changed and it made you look away again as you sat next to him.

Damian sighed at your silence and put his book down, holding your hand instead.

“What’s wrong beloved?” He asked, noting your lack of eye contact.

“I just don’t understand why you’re so okay with my power. I mean I can’t stand it and I hate using it,” you told him and risked a glance into his blue orbs, suddenly you couldn’t look away.

“Y/N do you want to know one of the reasons I fell in love with you?” When you said nothing he continued, “It’s because Ace, Titus, and Alfred don’t like anyone outside of the family for at least a month but the moment you stepped through the door they were as smitten with you as I was,” he told you and your eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Really? ” You asked, you hadn’t even noticed.

“Yeah, and then when you told me you were studying to be a vet I fell a little harder. And when I came back from patrol and found you and Titus sleeping on my bed. And when you carried that bird half a mile in the rain because of its broken wing,” he said and before he could continue you interrupted.

“Robin, it was a robin. I found it a day after we told each other about our night lives. I thought of you that entire half-mile,” you told him smiling as the rising sun began to make his eyes shine.

“There you go again,” he said and you tilted your head slightly in confusion, “Making me fall in love.”

You felt your cheeks warm beneath your chocolate skin as he used his free hand to cup your face.

“I don’t hate you or your power beloved, I know people who would be more than happy to abuse an ability like yours but you only use it for good. Hell if it was up to me I’d use it to make Alfred attack Drake non-stop,” he smiled at you and you couldn’t help the laugh that escaped your lips.

“That laugh too, I have always loved your laugh,” he told you.

“Okay now you’re getting cheesy,” you smiled as he released your hand to mimic the one on your face.

“Oh am I?” He teased inching closer and closer to your face.

“Absolutely,” you told him before closing the space between you and falling into a kiss that was all smiles and love.

Suddenly you didn’t hate your power so much.

[vegetarian-macan]

Macan’s Birthday 2021

As a lot of you know from following me or just watching me go completely off the rails, you’ll know that I’m very fond of Macan as a character. Unfortunately, he’s one of many characters that Lifewonders has introduced with an intriguing characterization that is shelved for the same joke over an over again. You know the one.

This post is going to be exploring that concept, and the ramifications it has on his character and how these beliefs affect him in his Date Quest. All information presented will be from his appearances that are lore-heavy, as well as some of my own inferences. Everything will be under the cut because this is going to be a little long.

And fair warning, I will be getting mentioning topics such as suicide and human trafficking as it is a part of his character, keep this in mind as you read.

First, let’s start with the lore that appears in his character quest (the first one, hoping for a second at some point), as that came first. The beginning starts with Macan speaking about how he woke up one day in a jungle with no memory besides the knowledge to find water, food and shelter, and the belief that if one consumes another, they will live on within you. He soon saw that he was a weretiger, with no recollection of how this transformation happened in the first place. In the scene in Chapter 3 where Macan and the MC are discussing himself, he brings up a theory of how this happened, saying that a tiger may have become human, or a human became a tiger. Either way, two beings were killed, and one was reborn from them.

He was unique in the world of Shangri-La, no one else was like him, as strong as him. He was unlike anything there, which made him truly and utterly alone. He hated what little time he spent as a weretiger in Shangri-La, being unable to speak to others as they were afraid of him, and with no one to talk to, he soon began to go mad. When the past Macan appears in his character quest, and the protagonist and the Macan from Tokyo have to fight him, he has a few lines of dialogue about how there’s no one around to answer his calls anymore, no one to listen to him. How he hates being alone.

After he is defeated, this past Macan cries about how he’s going to die alone, that he isn’t just another beast, he’s Someone. It is implied subtly in this scene that had he not been Summoned to Tokyo Macan would have either gone completely mad or committed suicide. Thankfully, this was avoided, although the result to being Summoned was less than ideal, which I will talk about later.

There is a scene in his character quest, right before Past Macan appears, that is explored in his date quest. While bathing in a lake together in the jungle, Macan brings up that with the protagonist there, being in Shangri-La is different. He’s more comfortable, he has someone to talk with now. He mentions that if he could, he’d want to go back to Shangri-La and live there forever with the MC, before stating that if he dies first, he’d want you to eat him.

As for his date quest, let’s set the scene with some lore provided in-game. It opens up with this: 

A world where the horizon is lost. This is the homeworld of Macan, Shangri-La. It is said that it is at the end of the mountain called Hourai "the end of Kunlun" and "behind Deva Loka". That is, it is "on the opposite side of the never-ending road" where people believe in "Reverse Reincarnation". In a world dominated by this faith, death does not mean the end of existence. They believed that even if the physical body was destroyed, the astral body and the spirit would continue living on in a separate state. They could continue living as long as the body, astral body and spirit were not all destroyed at the same time, which is the eternity that Shangri-La promised. 

Macan brings this fact up when he is introduced; those that he consume live on within him, and whoever shall consume him he will live on in them. This is the faith by which he lives his life. No living being is exempt from this rule in Shangri-La, which is most likely part of the reason that Macan has hangups over consuming animals like fish and livestock. They have no choice in how they die, and he cannot be comfortable eating them like that. 

As you may remember, Macan states, or rather implies, that he has eaten people that have lost in a duel against him before. He is completely comfortable with this aspect, seeing it as a natural result to things because, in his homeworld, it is. This is not shared by the residents of Tokyo and other worlds, however, with characters such as Suzuka and Nomad being put off by this. But there is a reason for why he fights the way he does.

Within Shangri-La there was a cycle that persisted up until the creation of the Macan we know, one that was completely broken by the actions of a single human. This cycle was the creation of the Weretiger King, and is explained in his Date Quest as follows:

The weretiger known as Macan Gadungan is also a believer of this faith [see above]. When a creature like him is created, a human is consumed by a beast. The human's spirit is then reborn in the body of this beast. The name of the magangadungan is known throughout Shangri-La as the king of the jungle where many monsters are said to roam. However, it is the opposite that is true. It is not the strongest magan becomes king, it is that the strongest king becomes a magan. Even the toughest bodies will eventually decay, and so even the strongest man will rise from his chair. But there was still a way in this world to make one's faith eternal. The way to accomplish this is to be eaten by a King and to become their flesh and blood. Even if one's body is consumed, as long as the rest lives on, so too will you. Therefore, it is the former king's fate to be eaten by a new king, and live on.* They will be reborn into a new body. The king of the jungle must then remain the best as well as fascinating target that everyone will want to eat. Until the day they too are consumed, no one can defeat them.

*(I’m aware of the contradiction here, but I will not know the correct translation of this section until it is translated officially)

Macan, or the human he once was, managed to stop this cycle, this loop, in its tracks by turning it on it’s head. The challenger is never supposed to defeat the King, and yet, he did. And so, every past King, every instance of this Weretiger King and the human Macan used to be were fused together, and became a new Weretiger King. One that hadn’t been seen before in that world. 

Soon after, he was Summoned to Tokyo, and sold on the black market run by Daikoku. His date quest explores as well, stating that his time as a prisoner was spent in a cage, shuffled between owners and trying to take pieces of him to use for medicine, leather, meat, anything they could take from him. And yet, he continued to live on, his immortality coming from the jungle of Shangri-La, and the former kings that now made up his existence.

He escaped by mauling one of his captors, and presumably picked up by Claude while he was on the run. Those captors of his wanted his flesh and blood, and it was something he would never give them willingly. 

The same cannot be said for the protagonist, or whoever he is paired with in his Date Quest.

During this quest, Macan’s beliefs are tested when he goes to finally consume the protagonist while they lay on the private beach, and he can’t go through with it. Even with his jaws around their throat, he cannot make the final push. Why?

You see, up until this point, Macan had lived by, essentially, the law of equivalent exchange. Give and take, in equal amounts. The bare minimum was given to him whenever someone interacted with him, and Macan gave the same back. So what happens when someone gives him more than that? What happens when he wants more than just the bare minimum? This part addresses that; his beliefs crumble under him.

Macan believes that he can’t ask for more than the bare minimum from others, their flesh and blood, because it would be going against the nature of the weretiger kings, to want nothing from others and also embracing your own personal desires to the fullest. This was what he learned in Shangri-La, the way to prove that he was alive and existed. It was simple, it was an easy world to live in with this belief. But it wasn’t enough for him, not when it came to the person he loved.

Macan wanted more from them; their flesh, blood, soul, everything. He wanted their time, their friendship, their love and adoration. But something deep in his being told him he didn’t deserve it, that they won’t reciprocate this need. The parts of himself, the human, the tiger, and the one that is neither and both, all want different things, and it confused him. Startled him. Scared him.

In the end, he realizes that if he were to kill and eat them, he would lose them. They would be apart of his existence from there on, but they wouldn’t be there. He would no longer be able to see them smile, sit with them on the beach, fight together with them. Which is a loss he couldn’t take, and was prepared to throw away his entire way of life to preserve that bliss. Were they to ask the same of him, he would give them everything he was without hesitation.

His date quest ends ambiguously, which is fitting. The player gets to decide how Macan and the one he has fallen for continue with their life. To follow one’s beliefs, or stop and reconsider when the price to pay is the one you love.

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

A Writer’s Guide to Viewpoints

Most of us know that there are three major viewpoints from which stories are told:

First Person -- “I tell my own story with the pronoun ‘I’ because I’m just so damn awesome.”

Second Person -- “You are a character in this story, and you can’t do anything about it.  If it makes you uncomfortable, tough shit.”

Third Person -- “He muttered himself and pulled the blankets over his head, wishing this asshole would stop narrating his life.”

Those are the three viewpoints, and that’s all there is to it.  Just pick your favorite, and you’re ready to go.  Right?

Well.  Not exactly.  

You see, my fellow scribblers, there are actually multiple sub categories of each viewpoint -- beyond even the “Third Person Omniscient” or “Third Person Subjective.”

To be specific:

First Person:

First Person Informant

First Person Reminiscent

Unreliable

Second Person:

Reader as Character

I Substitute

Third Person:

Objective 

Limited 

Multiple Selective Omniscience 

Omniscient

This might seem overwhelming, but fear not!  Each perspective is fairly easy to break down, and ultimately, apply to your own work and understanding of literature.  This post will elucidate each.

So let’s take charge of our narratives and delve in, like the active protagonists we are.

What is the First Person?  

I’m sure we all know this, but a First Person narrator tells their story from the pronoun I (or sometimes we, though this is quite rare.)

The different factions of First Person narration are somewhat under-discussed -- certainly not as widely known as the Third Person Omniscient versus Objective viewpoints -- but, as these examples prove, they do exist.

As you read, you’ll likely think back to your favorite narrators, and realize that not all First Person viewpoints were created equal.

The First Person Informant:

“I’m telling it like it is.  As it’s happening.  I’m living in the moment, and watching it unfold with you.  Look at us, charging blindly into the future together.  Isn’t it exciting?”

This dude conveys the events as they transpire, or appear to transpire, in the present.  There’s no “once upon a time” for him.  Merely the unfurling now.

Examples:

“Vampires in the Lemon Grove,” by Karen Russel

“In every season you can find me sitting at my bench, watching them fall.  Only one or two lemons tumble from the branches each hour, but I’ve been sitting here so long their falls seem continuous, close as raindrops.  My wife has no patience for this sort of meditation.  “Jesus Christ, Clyde,” she says, “You need a hobby.” 

Russel’s narrator – a world-weary vamp navigating the tribulations of eternal love and insatiable bloodlust in an Italian lemon grove – is an excellent example of a first-person informant.  He isn’t telling us about the lemon grove as it was, but as it is.  The lemons fall before his eyes as they fall before ours.  We are in this lemon grove together.

“Natural Selection,” by Jacob M. Appel

“The stolen baboon.  On the evening news, she’s an irrelevancy -- a simian mug shot tucked between National Hairball Awareness Day and an interview with the Boston Strangler’s Children.  Six hours later, she’s lounger on the sofa in our living room, smacking together her protruded lips, scratching her back on the damask.  Suburban Tampa is apparently far more fun than a lab cage in Atlanta.”

Here, we are transported directly into a father’s dilemma after his well-meaning yet painfully naive and somewhat spoiled daughter “liberates” a mistreated lab baboon -- a decision that could effectively ruin both of their lives.  The informant perspective amplifies the reader’s suspense, as we are in the moment with him and can only discover the outcome by watching events unfold (or skipping pages.)

“What I Do All Day,” by Hellen Ellis

“Inspired by Beyonce, I stallion-walk to the toaster.  I show my husband where a burnt spot looks like the island where we honeymooned, kiss him good-bye, and tell him what time to be home for our party.”

This one is just great.  We are transported into the perspective of a seemingly chipper, affluent housewife as she quietly goes insane from suffocating domesticity and the horror of a meaningless life.  And, emphasized by the informant perspective, we feel all of this with her!  It is characteristically brilliant and hilarious satire from Ellis’s brilliant and hilarious collection, American Housewife.

The First Person Reminiscent:

“It was on a dark and rainy night when I decided to tell this story.  I tell it as I remember it, after these events have transpired.  Let’s look back on them together.”

In this perspective, the narrator is looking back on events after they have happened.  He isn’t describing these events as they unfold;  he is telling a story.

Examples:

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

There are actually two reminiscent narrators here.  The titular Pi, and the author who has elected to tell his story.  

“This book was born as I was hungry.  Let me explain.  In the spring of 1996, my second book, a novel, came out in Canada.  It didn’t fair well.  Reviewers were puzzled, or damned it with faint praise.  Then readers ignored it.  Despite my best efforts at plating the clown or the trapeze artist, the media circus made no difference.  The book did not move.  Books lined the shelves of bookstores like kids standing in a row to play baseball or soccer, and mine was the gangly, unathletic kid that no one wanted on their team.  It vanished quickly or quietly.”

So opens this immensely clever novel, which, in all regards, blurs the lines between allegory and reality.  However, most of it is narrated by the eponymous Pi, who becomes this author’s muse.

“I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart.”

Here we have Pi, reflecting on his spiritual and allegorical companion, Richard Parker (an oddly named tiger whom we come to love as much as Pi does.)  Pi’s retrospective narration allows for the clear-sighted view of his complex feelings that can only come with time and distance.  Thus, this reminiscent narration enhances the power of the narrative.

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

My feelings towards J.D. Salinger are somewhat negative (I recommend you watch the documentary Salinger to figure out why) but this book is timeless for a reason.  This opening line offers up countless questions that leave you thinking long after you turn the final page.  Moreover, it impeccably establishes the voice that will carry us throughout its meandering narrative.  Catcher in the Rye would not be the same without its reminiscent narration, and this line establishes that.

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.”

This opening line makes me somewhat sick to read, because, of course, it is the floral soliloquy a frothing, rabid pedophile, about a “four feet ten” twelve-year-old girl.  But, as a piece of art, it is still remarkably done -- the perspective of a monster, putting himself on trial before an imaginary jury, and telling a story that is invariably partial towards his warped perspective.  Once again, the retrospective is integral to this grotesquely fascinating narrative.

The Unreliable Narrator:

“I am the King of the Lizard People, and no one will acknowledge it but me.  Don’t believe me?  Too bad.  I’m the one telling this story, and you have no choice but to believe my dubious rendition of these events.”

It’s widely debated as to whether this should be its own category.  Why?  Because all first person narrators are inherently unreliable.  We just have little choice but to take their information as it’s denoted to us.  Oftentimes, they win our trust;  but other times, it is their unabashed unreliability that makes the narrative memorable.

Don’t believe me?  All of the past three examples were unreliable narrators.  And I examine several more in my post on types of unreliable narrators here.

In the meantime, let’s move on to the oft-underrated Second Person.  

What is the Second Person?

This highly controversial viewpoint uses the pronoun “you.”  Most people associate this perspective with amateur fanfiction or pretentious purple prose, but let me tell you:  when this perspective works, it is stellar.  And I’ll explain why.

The Reader as a Character

“You’re walking down the street, and you realize the narrator is talking about you.  Maybe you like this.  Maybe you don’t.  The narrator doesn’t care.  The narrator is a cruel and indifferent god.  You put in your headphones to tune the narrator out.  The narrator finds this incredibly rude.  You can’t escape me, motherfucker.” 

This is what most people think about when they picture a Second Person Narrative.  Okay, not this specifically -- being frank, most people probably think about reader-insert fanfiction (which can be amazing as well.)  This viewpoint asks the reader to imagine themselves as a character -- usually the main character -- in the narrative.

Examples:

“This is a Story About You,” from Welcome to Night Vale, by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craner

“‘This is a story about you,’ said the man on the radio. And you were pleased, because you always wanted to hear about yourself on the radio.”

Even if you’re unfamiliar to this podcast, I highly recommend you listen to this episode (or read the transcript) immediately.  It shows you virtually everything reader-insert can be, and what a remarkable effect it can have.  It virtually envelops you in this perspective, this town, and this surrealistic reality. 

“The Young Immortal,” by Brooksie C. Fontaine (me!)

“When it started, it was the February fourteenth of 1945.  An American plane was hit in the engine by Japanese fire, fell from the slate gray sky like a shooting star.  Its blazing red reflection ignited the swell of colorless water.  And then it was gone, taking with it all the color in the world.

In that plane was my fellow air force pilot.  The love of my life.

You.

I know what you’re thinking:  you weren’t alive in ‘45, and you weren’t a man.  Well, I’m gonna tell you you’re wrong on both counts.  You’ve been a man before.  You’ll be one again.  It doesn’t matter to me, so long as it’s you.”

This one is unique, because it includes both the First Person Reminiscent (the eponymous immortal narrator) and the Second Person Reader as Character.  The reader is in the perspective of the narrator’s oft-reincarnated love interest, and so I decided to include it as an example. 

The “I” Substitute

“You were fifteen when you realized you could only get hard if you were thinking about carnivorous dinosaurs.  Not me.  You.  This has absolutely nothing to do with me, and I resent the insinuation that it does.  This is your problem, dino-fucker.  This is your story.  This is about you.” 

This one’s interesting.  The narrator is in denial, and using the second-person to distance themselves from the events of the story.  It is a substitute for the First Person, and a thinly-veiled one at that.

Examples:  

“Freaks,” by Alden Jones

“From the cluster of mourners, Kristen’s mother had emerged; she strode towards you.  Her straight brown hair was limp and flyaway.  She wore the expression of an animal who wanted to devour you.  Her eyes were cushioned by the bluish puffed skin beneath them, but they flashed hot with fury.

‘You,’ she said.  She pointed her finger.  She began to gallop.  ‘You think you see something no one else sees?’  she called.  Mourners turned to watch her progress towards you.  Heather took a step away.

You dangled the camera by your side.  You froze.  You did nothing but watch the thing happen.

‘YOU,’ the mother said, charging.  ‘YOU.  YOU.’”

These are actually the concluding lines of this haunting story from Jones’s collection, Unaccompanied Minors.  I had the pleasure of hearing her read this story for my graduate program;  in the Q&A afterwards, she explained how the narrative, and the characters’ mentality throughout the story, depended on the Second Person.  “It was a different story without it,” she said.  

“The Other Person,” by Nathan Leslie

“You write the story in the second person.  It’s your go-to point of view now.  You like it’s edge, its resonance of irony, even if your story lacks said irony (it adds irony).  You makes anything possible.  You is the new me.” 

This one is simultaneously hilarious, sad, and strangely invigorating.  It encapsulates the deep trenches of insecurity that come with being an author, and whittles them into sharp, sly satire.  The “I” Substitute doesn’t just emphasize the story;  it is the story.  This story would not exist without it.

Now that I’ve successfully changed your mind about the Second Person (and if you still don’t agree with me, you’re wrong), let’s move on to the ever-popular yet difficult-to-master Third Person. 

What is the Third Person? 

You know what the third person is, but I’ll suspend my disbelief and pretend you don’t.  It uses the pronouns he, she, or they, but the perspective can be virtually anywhere.  Which makes the Third Person such an interesting thing to explore.

Third Person Objective

“She slaps him.  He touches the red mark her ring left behind, and stares at her with wide eyes.”

This one is also known as The Dramatic, The Camera Lens, or The Fly on the Wall perspective.  It describes the events as we would view them, with no inside information into the thoughts or motivations of the characters.  What we see is what we get, and we have to discern the characters’ feelings based on what they say and do.

Example: 

“Meanwhile.  A Conversation,” from American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

“‘Miz Crow?’ 

‘Yes.’

‘You are Samantha Black Crow?’  

‘Yes.’

‘Do you mind if we ask you a few questions, ma’am?’

‘Are you cops?  What are you?’

‘My name is Town.  My colleague here is Mister Road.  We’re investigating the disappearance of two of our associates.’

‘What were their names?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Tell me their names.  I want to know what they were called.  Your associates.  Tell me their names and maybe I’ll help you.’ 

‘...Okay.  Their names were Mister Stone, and Mister Wood.  Now, can we ask you some questions?’ 

‘Do you guys just see things and pick names?  “Oh, you be Mister Sidewalk, he’s Mister Carpet, say hello to Mister Airplane?”’”

In this unique and hilarious chapter, we witness an exchange between (bisexual icon) Samantha Black Crow and a minor villain who has been assigned to track down the protagonist.  We aren’t privy to either of the characters’ emotions or thoughts, or even their actions, yet we can discern all of it from dialogue alone.

Third Person Limited 

“She’s had enough of his bullshit.  Something in her snaps, and her open palm collides -- hard -- with the side of his stupid, stupid face.  He touches the red mark she left behind, staring at her like he can’t believe she actually did that.  Good.  Maybe that’ll teach him to stop being such an pugnacious fuckwad.” 

This one is tethered to a specific character, whose thoughts and feelings we are aware of.  However, we are not inside the mind of the character in the same manner as a First Person narrator.

Examples: 

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

“Shadow had done three years in prison.  He was big enough, and looked don’t-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time.  So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.”

Though American Gods features an impressive diversity of perspectives, we spend most of the book tethered to the lovable ex-con Shadow Moon.  We are never trapped inside his head, as we would be if the story were First Person, but we know what he is thinking and feeling.  He is our viewpoint character.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry 

“It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.  No.  Wrong word, Jonas thought.  Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen.  Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice.  He had seen it both times.  Squinting toward the sky, he had seen the sleek jet, almost a blur at its high speed, go past, and then a second later heard the blast of sound that followed.  Then one more time, a moment later, from the opposite direction, the same plane.”

Lois Lowry’s timeless, haunting dystopia is introduced through the guileless eyes of twelve-year-old Jonas.  We are aloud to see the world from his perspective, but the distance of Third Person Limited allows us to feel the horror of each situation with more clarity.  Lowry demonstrates how to utilize POV to one’s advantage, similar to how Neil Gaiman uses Third Person Limited to enhance the horror of his masterful modern fairy tale Coraline.

Multiple Selective Omniscience 

“She decides she’s had enough of his bullshit, and slaps him.  Hard.  Hard enough that her ring leaves a red welt on his cheek.

He feels his eyes go wide, and he touches the side of his face.  He keeps waiting for her to apologize, but her eyes are narrowed and her lips are pursed.  She doesn’t look sorry.”

The viewpoint shifts between characters.  It can be extremely effective, as long as we are aware of when the proverbial camera changes angles.

Examples: 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith

First of all:  if you haven’t read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, do it.  Do it right now.  It is the piece of classic literature I recommend to everyone who hates classic literature, because it’s devoid of all of the traits that make people hate classic literature to begin with.  It has oodles of complex, idiosyncratic, autonomous, and tough-as-hell female characters, bad language, and frank discussions of sexuality, poverty, and classism.  Read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  

Anyway.  Though its protagonist is Francie Nolan, who, like the eponymous tree, perseveres and thrives against insurmountable odds, the viewpoint bounces around an immense deal, between Francie’s family and neighbors to the most minor side-characters.  Because of this, many people believe that the true protagonist is Brooklyn itself, and the people in it. 

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, by Ayana Mathis 

This is a captivating, gut-wrenching book, similar to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in its highly effective depiction of poverty.  The book follows the children of Hattie Shepherd, a formerly young and optimistic mother, who lost her firstborn twins to an easily preventable disease in the aftermath of the Great Migration.  The viewpoint changes with each chapter, showing the perspectives of each of her children and how they are haunted by this loss.

The Vacationers, by Emma Straub 

A far cry from its poverty-focused predecessors, this book focuses on the problems of the affluent and privileged.  It is, however, a deeply interesting read, as it swerves between the perspectives of the titular vacationers after a patriarch’s fore into adultery threatens his family and marriage.

Omniscient 

“She decides she’s had enough of his bullshit, and to his surprise, she slaps him.  Hard enough that he feels her ring leave a red welt on his flesh.

He touches his cheek in shock, and stares at her, awaiting an apology.  But she isn’t sorry.  All she feels is satisfaction.” 

Just what it sounds like.  The character is an all-knowing entity.  Or Lemony Snicket.  Perhaps both. 

Examples:  

Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng

“Lydia is dead.  But they don’t know this yet.”

Celeste Ng’s beautiful and haunting novel begins with the wordless affirmation of the narration’s omniscience.  The narrative knows things the characters don’t, though it doesn’t always choose to relay its secrets.  In this case, it doesn’t answer the mystery of Lydia’s death until the very end -- an answer that the characters themselves will never discover.

The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.  Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat:  it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

Tolkien’s book shows us how useful omniscience is for worldbuilding.  He doesn’t need to cleverly sneak this exposition into Bilbo’s dialogue;  he can tell it to us outright, and immediately draw us into this world while doing so. 

Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

“Current theories on the creation of the Universe state that, if it was created at all and didn’t just start, as it were, unofficially, it came into being between ten and twenty thousand years ago.  By that same token the earth itself is generally supposed to be about four and a half thousand million years old.  

These dates are incorrect.” 

This delightfully Pratchett-esque opening immediately puts us into a -- literally -- godlike perspective, in which we are given insider information about the start of the universe.  It immediately establishes the tone of this amazing novel:  one in which life and creation are too important to be taken seriously.  And for this purpose, this uniquely omniscient perspective is the only way to go. 

That’s all I’ve got for now, my fellow scribblers!  As you contemplate perspective, just think about how different the same events would look from a two disparate viewpoints.  Even if two people are sharing a moment, that moment is different for both of them.

The perspective isn’t something you tack on to your story.  Oftentimes, it defines your story.  So choose carefully, and don’t be afraid to explore!

Happy writing, everybody!  <3

[httpjeon]

— 04. risk it all | jungkook

jungkook/reader ― ft. yoongi, jimin, & tae | angst, light fluff | hybrid au

wordcount: 2k

↬ content warnings: hybrid abuse, physical violence, use of pet names, soft jungkook, mating-cycles/in heat

― synopsis: the plan to escape begins, and dangerous circumstances arise. jungkook needs to think quick on his feet to protect you.

note: just one more part left!

blog masterlist | series masterlist

© httpjeon 2019. do not repost, modify, or translate.

Time seemed to move slower and slower and the hours slowed to agonizing minutes. The cool metal of the cage beneath began to offer no help in your overheated body. Sweat covered your skin and you couldn't sleep as you were much too uncomfortable. Yoongi had been doing his best to keep you alert to keep you from falling any deeper.

The most notable thing that happened was the arrival of a new face.

Fluffy ears twitched atop his head matched with pretty blank hair and an orange and black striped tail. He took over Jungkook's cage directly across from you and you could constantly feel his eyes burning holes into you.

"______?" Yoongi muttered one night, voice rough and husky. "You remember the plan right?"

You winced as you struggled to sit up, leaning against the bars to meet Yoongi's concerned gaze. Your breathing was labored, not having enough sustenance lately to move your heavy, exhausted body.

"You're gonna fight?" You answered the main plot Jimin had hatched that you could remember.

"That's right," You could make you Yoongi's smile through the darkness. "The guy over there is Taehyung. Remember him?"

Taehyung.

A tiger hybrid whom Jimin managed to make friends with although that wasn't very hard. He and Yoongi were supposed to fight. That was the plan.

"Guys," Jimin scurried from around the cages to come into sight of you all. he was out of breath and his hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat. "I just learned that another buyer is coming tomorrow and he's already paid to take _____. We have to do this tomorrow or we'll lose our chance,"

"That's a week earlier than we planned!" Taehyung spoke, voice surprisingly deep as his tail twitched anxiously behind him. "Are we really ready? Pushing it forward could fuck this whole thing up!"

"Her pre-heats getting worse," Yoongi sighed. "It's going to hit sooner than I expected anyway. I think it's better to move it like Jimin said,"

Your heart ached at their concern for you. But fear prickled at you at the thought of some bastard swooping in and taking you away -- to never see Jungkook again.

"It's decided then," Jimin reached into your cage and gently pet your ear. "We'll get you and Jungkook out of here I promise. I want to make sure you're prepared. Tae and Yoongi are going to really fight tomorrow,"

"I don't want anyone to get hurt..." You whispered, leaning into the comforting touch.

"I know...I don't either," Jimin moved to pet your hair, his fingers catching in some tangles there. "But this is the only way, you know? It has to be believable if the guards are going to leave their posts,"

"What if they kill them for fighting?" You lowered your voice even though you knew both of them could easily hear you.

"Don't worry about that, _____," Taehyung smiled from across you, a cute boxy smile that would have been contagious if you didn't feel so miserable. "They won't do that. They'll probably just throw up in the hold, you know? We can handle that!"

Taehyung's cheerful disposition managed to help calm your racing heart. Thinking it over, you slowly nodded your head before meeting their eyes.

"Alright, I'm ready if you guys are,"

You didn't sleep that night, although that wasn't anything abnormal lately with your pre-heat slowly eating away at your weary body. You blankly stared ahead, wishing your eyes would just close and you could find yourself in a peaceful dreamland. Alas, that wasn't possible as the guards came along with Jimin to escort your section for cage cleanings.

They didn't bother collaring you in your weak state but they chained up Taehyung and Yoongi. You kept your eyes on Jimin as you waited for the signal, having gone over how this would play out many times since learning of your escape attempt.

Everything seemed to go in slow motion as Jimin lightly tugged Taehyung's tail. The feline sprung into action, surprising the guards to the point they weren't able to catch him as he pounced on Yoongi.

Once the two made contact, it was impossible to separate them -- their strength combined too much for mere humans to fight against. They were apex predators literally trying to kill each other -- at least they thought.

For a second you were frozen, the snarls and growls coming from the two predators was enough to send your poor prey-mind into overdrive. Frantically, you looked around for an escape route -- a safe one.

"We have a Code here!" One of the guards shouted, only serving to rile up the other hybrids in surrounding cages. They cheered Taehyung and Yoongi on, shouting words on encouragement to one or the other. More guards arrived, slamming nightsticks against the cage to silence the bystanders.

One of them slammed his nightstick down on Yoongi's back, the wolf yowling in pain but still keeping his grip on the tiger. You winced, covering your mouth to keep yourself from whimpering sympathetically at the sight of blood dripping down his cheek from a well-placed scratch provided by Taehyung.

Jimin found you in the chaos, shoving a ring of keys into your trembling hands.

"These will unlock Jungkook's cage, go before it's too late," He whispered, helping you to your feet and pushing you in the direction of the solitary confinement door that housed Jungkook.

Although your body still felt weak and exhausted, you still managed to scurry to the door. You forced yourself to ignore the hungry gazes and whispers from the hybrids as you passed, no doubt drawn by the scent of your heat beginning. The metal door was impossibly heavy, making your temples throb as you used all the strength you simply didn't have to fit your body in through a small gap.

It was dark and humid inside, dirty concrete walls offering no ventilation. The smell of urine and sweat was strong, making you cover your nose in disgust. As you passed various cages, you were surprised by how unresponsive the hybrids were to you.

Come to think of it, the guards didn't typically come in there from what you saw from your own cage outside.

Jungkook was located at the very end and he was sitting on the dirty floor with his head against the wall looking completely exhausted.

"Jungkook?" You whispered, squinting into the darkness for any movement.

At the sound of your voice, his eyes flew open and he was on his feet faster than you could follow. Reaching through the bars, he cupped you cheek and smiled.

"I'm so happy to see you," Were the first words he said to you and you felt tears sting at your eyes at the relief you felt having him so close.

Your hands were still trembling from the adrenaline as you pulled out and key that had a blue mark from a pen on it, sliding it into the lock of Jungkook's cell and opening it with a solid click.

The second the door was open, you found yourself in his arms. His scent was overwhelming but no less comforting as he cupped the back of your head to hold you as close as he could. Soft lips pressed against your forehead and he smiled.

"You're burning up, we have to get out of here," He muttered.

"Where do we go?" You slowly blinked, everything beginning to rapidly swirl and tilt around you.

"There's a door back here they sometimes come through. Jimin says it leads to a garage and we can get out through there," Jungkook replied, keeping his hands on you to keep you steady. "Get on my back, baby,"

You were too out of it to even recognize the petname as he crouched in front of you and helped you onto his back. Having him in your arms safe and sound, you couldn't stop the few tears that escaped your eyes. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and hugged him.

"I missed you so much, Jungkook. I was so scared when they took you away from me," You confessed, fisting his shirt as he made his way to the door at the very back.

"I know. I'm sorry I let me temper get the best of me and they took me away. I was so worried when Jimin told me your heat hit and that a buyer was coming for you. I would never forgive myself if anything ever happened to you, _____,"

The door was a simple wooden one and Jungkook was able to easily open it. You looked around, taking in the last area before your freedom.

It was a concrete garage with two doors big enough to fit trucks.

"This is where they bring in supplies I think," Jungkook adjusted you on his back, making you whine. There was fleeting pressure on your core, reminding you of how your heat was literally looming over you.

He seemed to stiffen suddenly, inhaling deeply.

"You're--" He broke off in a growl and rushed over to the last door. It wasn't locked, probably because it was blocked off from hybrid's view unless someone like Jimin spilled the beans so they never worried about anyone but personnel getting in and out.

As the door was flung open, you nearly cried as you felt the breeze on your sweat-slicked skin. From outside, you were surprised how you well you could hear the shouts and screams of complete chaos within those concrete prison walls.

Jungkook jostled you, carrying you farther and farther away from that place until it completely disappeared from view.

It seemed to be in a really seedy area with worn down buildings and warehouses all around with chain-link fences and blinking streetlamps. You closed your eyes, basking in the cool night breeze.

"We're going to go a bit further until we're a safe distance, alright?" He asked softly, his voice vibrating his back. "Once we're far enough that they won't be able to find us,"

You nodded in response, too worn out to formulate a verbal response. The buildings passed by and the breeze rustled your hair as you felt yourself begin to doze off for the first time in over a week.

However, it didn't seem to last very long as you were awoken with what felt like burning hot needles piercing your skin. You sat up, wrapping your arms around your middle as you began to sob -- unable to stop yourself due to the overwhelming pain.

"Shh, it's alright," Jungkook quickly soothed, kneeling beside you and holding you close to him. "Your heat's hit," He frantically looked around the abandoned house he decided to hole up in.

Your cries broke his heart and he held you close to him. This wasn't a good situation. You didn't have food and he couldn't leave to find any with you in your current state. He felt helpless, soothing your hair.

You wouldn't have the energy to go through with him taking you now. You also weren't in your right mind and he wouldn't take advantage of you.

With your lack of food lately, your poor body wasn't fit to sustain you through a heat. At this rate the fever would no doubt kill you.

There wasn't even water.

The pain was consuming you and it was all you could think about. You couldn't even process how loud you were crying, all you knew was that it hurt. You clung to Jungkook, fisting his shirt in hopes that his scent would at least help ease something. Your body was on fire and you were shivering. It felt like at any moment you would cease breathing and collapse.

Right at that moment you actually wished death would come. Your heats had never ever been this horrid in your life and you wanted it to end.

Jungkook was neck deep in worry and panic that he didn't notice the door creaking open until a flashlight was shining down on the two of you.

[shasta-reese]

so...just watched Tiger King

Initially wasn’t gonna watch it but literally saw the name everywhere and I caved to see what the hype was about. This is going to be an extremely long post since I will be giving my thoughts on the entire docu-series, so if you like reading thorough reviews, welcome but if not this ain’t for you. This won’t be in chronological order but just whatever comes to my mind first. 

After finishing it, naturally I went on social media to see what people opinions were. And I. Was Baffled. To see that some people are saying that Joe Exotic should be out of jail is fucking insane. Like yeah I could maybe see why people say he was framed and was kinda set up by Jeff Lowe for the murder-for-hire. But are people literally forgetting about the other charges he had like i don’t know ANIMAL ABUSE. Like come on people, okay fine people argue saying her never physically abuse them but it’s quite clear that he did not have proper enclosures for those animals. Tigers are largely solitary animals, and he placed multiple tigers into a single enclosure that was barely enough for one tiger. That is still a mistreatment of animals. 

And then we find out about the WalMart expired meat, which sure animal stomachs can handle some slightly expired meat sure but you cannot say that it’s right to feed them that. Let’s not forget that he was also using that meat to serve to people. 

Next up we have the obvious manipulation of his apparent husbands. I can’t say much for Dillon (the current husband). But it was so obvious that he was controlling Travis and John in some kind of way. They were both so young and addicted to drugs and Joe clearly saw that as an opportunity, and basically kept them from leaving by giving them gifts and drugs. 

Just the entire tiger breeding part was just hard to watch for me. They literally show us that Joe took a newborn tiger from its mother. HOW ARE THERE NOT MORE PEOPLE UPSET THAT HE RIPPED CUBS FROM THEIR MOTHER MINUTES AFTER BIRTH! Yes, tigers are endangered. Yes, they should breed to be able to keep the species alive. BUT Joe exotic is not qualified and does not have the knowledge of proper animal conservation to be breeding tigers! He is breeding them to make a profit by cub petting, and selling them to be pets (which they are not).

I personally cannot find any redeemable qualities in Joe Exotic. Maybe he did actually care for the animals and truly loves animals but he got too caught up in the money and fame, completely throwing what he initially wanted to do. And to his credit he did have a moment of self-awareness when he was talking about the chimpanzees that were relocated. But even then he still did what he did and now he’s paying the price. He also made his mother sign documents that she didn’t even know what the contents were and got her dragged into his legal messes which is just fucked up.

I don’t think it’s possible for me to put every single thought I have into one post so I’ll try to give a brief summary of the main characters at least.

Jeff Lowe is an obvious con artist that scams people into thinking he has money but clearly doesn’t. He is absolute scum. yeah just scum. Just seeing his face just makes me wanna punch him. He has a very punchable face.

Antle is somehow worse that almost everyone in this entire thing. and i think the worse thing is that he is still getting away with all the shit he’s done/doing. Just listening to what that girl that escaped all that makes me sick that someone can do this. He’s literally breeding hybrids, that in itself is unethical, so fuck him. He’s literally leading a cult.

Carole Baskin. She’s clearly a flawed person and she definitely had something to do with her ex-husbands disappearance. Based on evidence or lack thereof, can’t say she killed him but she definitely knows more than we think. I dislike her in that she involved Big Cat Rescue into a personal feud. I will also say that she is a petty bitch. She’s not as bad as the others in terms of treatment to animals but still bad.

Big Cat Rescue (BCR) as an organisation is legit and should not be dragged down just because the founder has some shady personal stuff. Big Cat Rescue is quite open with how their facility is run, from their YouTube videos it shows clearly that the enclosures are way bigger than what they tried to portray in the docuseries. What was shown in the doc was only a small part of their enclosure where they feed the big cats. They offer a large area, hiding spots, shade, a pool for the tigers, and regular enrichment for their big cats. They rescue their big cats from abusive and neglected environments. And I am saying this for the people who keep claiming that BCR is doing the exact same thing as Joe or Antle, and that they’re keeping animals in cages too. Well, where else are we supposed to put them? CAPTIVE BRED ANIMALS CANNOT BE RELEASED INTO THE WILD! THEY WILL NOT SURVIVE! Literally all these people saying that these animals shouldn’t be in cages, and I agree but what so you propose we do with them? Leave them in the care of private owners who only got them because they were cute as a cub or as an ego boost to say “OhHh i OwN a TiGeR” and clearly don’t see that they are inadequate to be keeping a fucking tiger? Leave them in an environment where their basic needs are not met? Sanctuaries missions are to rescue these animals, their ultimate mission is to rescue these animals until there are no more privately owned exotic animals to be saved, give them a place of peace to live the remainders of their days and have empty cages. I cannot say anything about the treatment of the workers (because I didn’t see any solid sources saying they don’t pay their workers) but from what i gathered they do have some permanent staff but majority are volunteers (which by definition is someone who works without being paid, because its volunteer work), but I will say that BCR provides for their animals with the best of their abilities.

Holy shit... just ...when I watched the first episode I already didn’t want to continue because of the blatant disregard of animal welfare. But I watched the whole thing anyway to get a proper opinion instead of basing off of only one episode. On a slightly lighter note, I really liked Saff, he was one of the only people I liked. The dude with no legs (sorry can’t remember his name). And also Joshua Dial the campaign manager, like dude was nice, its just so tragic that he witnessed Travis shooting himself, hope the dude is going to therapy for that. RIP Travis Maldonado. Like they said in the end, nobody won and definitely not the animals, they suffered the most out of all of this.

I think that’s all off the top of my head that I have to say for now. Leave a reply if I missed out on anything. At the end of the day this is just my opinion, obviously we all have different opinions. So feel free to leave your opinion but I only want to have a civil discussion and don’t have the energy to argue with anyone. Guess that’s all.

Goodbye, for now

[hms-chill]

RWRB Study Guide: Chapter 4

Hi y’all! I’m going through Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue and defining/explaining references! Feel free to follow along, or block the tag #rwrbStudyGuide if you’re not interested!

The Willard (75): A luxury hotel just down the street from the White House, where rooms can cost up to $8,000 per night. It hosts the turkeys to be pardoned by the president.

Cornbread and Stuffing (75): Traditional Thanksgiving dishes. Pardoning turkeys are commonly named after foods associated with Thanksgiving, recently including Bread, Butter, Cheese, and Apple.

Pennsylvania Avenue (75): The street that the White House and Willard are on.

Until I pardon them (75): The pardoning of the turkeys is an actual American tradition. Americans began sending turkeys to the president around the same time we started celebrating Thanksgiving, and the tradition of pardoning them began with Clinton in 1999. Only one turkey is officially pardoned, but there is always a backup turkey, and you can read their names here. 

En suite (76): A bathroom directly connected to a bedroom.

CNN (76): Cable News Network, a liberal news station.

Republican primary debate (76): A debate between candidates for the Republican (conservative) party, held before the party decides who they will nominate for the presidential race.

Summer home in Majorca (79): Majorca is an island in the Mediterranean, just off the coast of Spain.

Jurassic Park* (79): A movie in which dinosaurs escape from their cages and the main characters have to escape them.

Autoerotic asphyxiation (80): “erotic asphyxiation” is essentially sexual choking; if it’s “autoerotic” it would be Alex doing it to himself.

Silk pillow over my face (80): This may be a reference to the Shakespeare play Othello where (spoilers, though it’s been out for like 500 years) the title character smothers his wife with a pillow after rumors that she’s cheating on him.

Jaffa cakes (80): A British snack with a sponge cake base, a layer of orange jam, and topped with chocolate.

Jabba (81): Jabba the Hutt, a Star Wars character.

Great British Bake Off (81): A famously wholesome baking show that is technically a competition between home bakers from around the UK, though it is far from competitive.

Scandinavian skin care (81): Many luxury skincare brands have come from Scandinavian countries in the past few years.

Chopped (82): An incredibly competitive American cooking show.

The Manson tapes (82): A series of tapes revealing the dealings of the Manson Cult, which was responsible for nine murders in 1969.

David Bowie (82): A famously bisexual British actor and musician known for his bold presentation and stagecraft. He was admitted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. (listen here and here)

Seinfeld (82): An American sitcom from the 1990s. Wayne Knight, who played Dennis Nedry and had a very bad time in Jurassic Park, was also in Seinfeld.

Jeff Goldblum (82): An American actor (and force of chaos) known for his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, a scientist who sees from the very beginning that maybe breeding massive predators is a bad idea.

The Post (84): The Washington Post

Oval Office (84): The president’s office in the White House

Lincoln Bedroom (85): A guest bedroom that is part of the Lincoln Suite in the White House, named after President Lincoln, who used to room as an office.

Chocolate shop on the first floor (85): According to the White House Museum online, there is a chocolate shop on the bottom floor of the White House that prepares the chocolates served in the White house.

The Atlantic (85): An American editorial magazine that covers news, politics, education, science, and more. It targets serious readers and “thought leaders”. (More)

Truman Balcony (85): A balcony overlooking the White House’s South Lawn (in the “back” of the White House).

Mijo (85): For those who haven’t read my fic “Speaking My Language” here, “mijo” is Spanish term of endearment that translates directly to “my son” (Mi hijo)

Washington monument (86): A tall obelisk on the National Mall in Washington, DC, dedicated to George Washington.

Eisenhower Building (86): The Eisenhower Executive Offices Building is a building that houses the executive Office of the President, including the Vice President’s office.

Los Bastardos (86): Spanish for “The bastards”.

Caldillo (86): a spicy Mexican beef stew.

Masa (86): A corn/maize dough used for making corn tortillas, tamales, and other Mexican/Latin American dishes.

Valedictorian (87): A student who ranks the highest in their graduating class in high school.

New Orleans (87): A city in Louisiana known for its vibrant blend of French and Creole culture, its jazz scene, and its Mardi Gras celebration. It is also Casey McQuinston’s hometown.

AP classes (90): Advanced placement classes are high school classes taught at a college level; at the end of the year, students take a test to determine whether or not they will get college credit for it.

Hanukkah (90): A Jewish celebration honoring the second rededicating of the temple in Jerusalem. It is not traditionally a major Jewish holiday, but it has become one of the best-known due to the fact that it occurs near Christmas every year. 

“Good King Wenceslas” (91): A traditional Christmas song about a king who braves the cold to give alms to a poor peasant on Christmas.

Jim-jams (91): Pajamas.

Tiger sharks over a baby seal (91): According to my roommate, who loves sharks, tiger sharks are one of the most vicious types of sharks. They’re bottom feeders, so they wouldn’t necessarily get seals too often, but if they got one, they would be all over it.

Bougie (95): Fancy or upper class (from the French “bourgeoisie”).

Real Housewife (95): The Real Housewives of [City] are a string of semi-popular American reality TV shows.

East Room (95): An event and reception room in the White House.

Tramp stamp (96): A tattoo on the lower back, associated with less savory activities and a general air of trashiness.

Zac Posen (97): A gay, Jewish fashion designer from New York, known for his glamorous evening gowns and cocktail dresses.

Middle-shelf whiskey (97): A “middle shelf” alcohol is one step up from the cheapest option; a whiskey is a dark alcohol associated with Texas/the West.

“American Girl” (98): A 1976 rock song that has become a rock classic. (Listen here)

Center for American Progress (98): A liberal public policy research and advocacy organization.

Pez (candy) (99): A type of small, sweet pieces of candy that come from fancy, collectable Pez dispensers.

Sky writers (99): Sky writers use the trails of their airplanes to write things in the sky. It costs at least $3,500 for a single message.

“Get Low” (101): Despite its incredibly raunchy lyrics, this song was a common one at school dances in the early 2010s. I was in middle school in roughly 2010-2012, and I have vivid memories of people being into this song.

The Kid ‘n Play (102): A dance move pioneered by the hip-hop duo of the same name, loosely based on the Charleston. (see it here)

Vato (102): Mexican slang for “friend”, “person”, or “dude”. 

Moët & Chandon (102): A luxury French champagne.

New Year’s Kiss (103): At least in the US, it’s traditionally considered good luck to kiss someone at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s.

Peach schnapps (103): Schnapps is a sweet, inexpensive, and very alcoholic drink.

Rookie NFL running back (103): A running back is a football position responsible for running with the ball. Most are either short and quick to avoid tackles or big and stocky to power through them.

Yacht kid (104): Someone rich.

Orion**(105): A winter northern hemisphere constellation of a hunter/warrior. According to Greek mythology, Orion was the only man (or person) the goddess Artemis ever loved, but she refused to give up her life with her huntresses for him. He began burning/destroying her forest in retribution, and she is forced to kill him.

America’s golden boy (105): A “golden boy” is a boy who is favored or put upon a pedestal. 

Tequila (106): A type of alcohol that originates from central Mexico.

Bloke (106): British slang for a “regular dude” or everyday man.

Teen Vogue (106): An American magazine aimed at teenagers that used to focus on fashion and celebrity news, but has more recently shifted to dealing with serious social issues.

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*This movie is especially known for its special effects, which are incredible because they actually built animatronic dinosaurs and also got real scientists on the project to help them figure out how dinosaurs would move/act. After it came out, earth and environmental science departments around the world got a ton of funding to see if they could find any dinosaur DNA in fossils, as that’s a central part of the movie’s plot.

**According to a nerd astronomy class I took in like 4th grade, every culture who could see Orion saw a warrior, which is just... really cool to me. That so many people for so long saw the same thing in a set of stars.

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If there’s anything I missed or that you’d like more on, please let me know! And if you’d like to/are able, please consider buying me a ko-fi? I know not everyone can, and that’s fine, but these things take a lot of time/work and I’d really appreciate it! A massive thanks to @lyanna-wilson for the ko-fis the other day; they meant a ton!

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Chapter 1 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 5 

[chroniclesofcake]

TMNT- Element Collision

*Yes, this is my story that I had gotten from my dA account, written a while ago in 2014*

I’ll be posting more of this story, dw :)

In this AU, they are not related whatsoever!!!

Chapter 1: Hot leather whips the backs of the innocent men, as they are forced into cage trolleys. Cackles from the abductors ring out to the rest of the small indian huts. Children sobbed their hearts out as they saw their fathers being snatched away like animals. Mothers would plead by the captors’ waists and beg for the return of their husbands, but in return had received lashings from their superiors. All but a little sea green turtle on the dirt road. Blood ran down his face, like water from a leaf. Alas, he wouldn't move, for he believed that someone would take him home. To take him away from the dangers of the world. His eyes revealed the brightest sapphires, shaken from fear. To his beliefs, he didn’t know why would he be left behind. Every moon, since he was isolated, he wouldn't think about food, water, and any type of necessities. All he could think about was a home. A place where the bed wasn’t the road. Years later~ At the central market place, there were a variety of stores and stands. They included a variety from fruits and vegetables, to clothing, and everything in between. Standing at one of the fruit stands, was an old balding cat. He was feverishly attempting to sell day old oranges. He was even resorting to bargaining for them. But he would never just give them away, not without payment. Lurking from the shadow, was a steel blue eyed terrapin. “What’s for lunch today, old cat,” the terrapin murmured. The old cat, oblivious to the blue eyed terrapin, was darting over to get more supplies from the sack to put on display. With a fatal swoop of his hand, the terrapin dashed and grabbed all the oranges he could get in the worn down satchel. The terrapin heard from behind, a very red in the face cat hissing profanities for the stolen goods. “Sucker,” the orange thief snickered away. While running on the dirt ground, he ran past some of marble pillars which lead to the lush courtyard garden. Hiding by the marble door arc, he saw a cluster of small animal children. They were clothed in rags, barely nourished by the small amount of greens that the caretaker had given. Not being able to hide his excitement, the turtle emerged from the shadows. “Mikey!!! You’re here,” the little children squealed with excitement. “Hey my little munchkins! How are you guys doing,” Mikey quickly hugged each and every one of the 20 kids. “We’re doing ok, just hungry,” a little girl kitten whimpered. Just by looking at these kids, it made Mikey remember how tough it was on the streets without a family. It was as if he were looking into a mirror. “Well you’re in luck, because I bare gifts for everyone,” Mikey chirped with glee, revealing the satchel full of oranges. The caretaker and children went ballistic, cheering for day old fruits. Completely unaware of his surroundings, Mikey didn’t sense the looming shadow from the distance. As the children and caretaker dined on the stolen fruits, they saw a huge figure appear behind the teen turtle. The little girl kitten screamed, making Mikey turn around to see his stalker. Behind him was a taller forest green turtle, with blue warrior markings near the eyes. Noticing all of the markings on the larger turtle; the younger terrapin could tell he was little older than him. “I saw what you did back there,” the forest green terrapin remarked. Mikey felt shudders as the larger terrapin spoke. He had a deep sensual voice, as if he could make anyone fall to their knees upon hearing him speak. The feature on him that stood out the most were his eyes. They looked as if they were murky gray blue. So cold of a stare, yet a playful feeling laced around them. The younger turtle glanced down at the larger terrapin, to find two twin warrior katanas, and a forearm guard with the symbol of the imperial army. “No. Not this again,” Mikey felt a deathly chill run up his spin, suddenly remembering that horrid night. In sudden remembrance, the little turtle took a step back. This man resembled the men that took the innocent village men away. To battle. Shaken with fear, the little terrapin fled away from the courtyard. He was not going to be taken away to a torcherous fate. “Wait! Come back kid,” The older terrapin commanded, the authority not mistaken in his voice. With the speed of a tiger, the older terrapin chased after the younger terrapin. Being light on his feet, Mikey was much faster than his chaser. Jumping from stand to stand, as he tried to escape his imperial stalker. Feeling his endorphins kick in, Mikey did a backflip off of one of the vegetable carts, thus causing the cart to tip over. Creating a block in the path, enabling the larger terrapin from crossing. “Not today old man,” Mikey shouted, feeling the burn in his calves. “Who are you calling old, I’m twenty-one,” the forest green terrapin spat back in disbelief. The nerve of this boy was unpredictable. He couldn't believe the agility that the sea green turtle possessed. “Even though he has agility, doesn't mean he doesn’t have stupidity,” the older terrapin smirked. Mikey reached the end of the market. “Shit,” he groaned as he looked for a quick way to create a diversion. The only distractions Mikey had left were a few food vendors. Searching left and right he saw a table that looked like it would create plenty of chaos to allow him an escape. He ran to the table. Feeling the burn in his legs as he ran, he knew it was an all or nothing shot. As he went to knock the table over, he felt his legs buckle. He fell to the ground, up setting the table as he used it to try to catch his fall. “You’re not getting away this time,” the older terrapin stated as he drew one of his swords. He came closer to the the younger turtle. “Shit shit shit,” Mikey scrambled to get up from the dusty ground. But it was too late for him. The larger turtle grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him up. The moment Mikey felt the forest green terrapin touch him, he felt a spark on his shoulder. “What the hell was that,” Both turtles questioned. “Listen old man, get your pedofile hands off of me,” Mikey growled, feeling threatened. “Wouldn’t dream of it toddler,” the older terrapin proclaimed “What the hell do you mean by toddler, I’m eighteen, asshole,” Mikey threatened, trying to kick the terrapin in the balls. “Yeah, not going to kick me there, are you,” The terrapin stopped Mikey’s foot from kicking him. “Was trying to, but you’re too fat to get my foot across,” Mikey grumbled “Listen I’m not going to fight you, but you need to stop trying to assault me,” The older terrapin smirked. “Oh, you out of your god damned mind?! You were trying to assault me with your pedo self,” The younger terrapin snapped back. “I’m twenty-one, for your information! Do I look like I’m forty,” the unknown turtle questioned. “Well-” Mikey considered. “Don’t even answer that,” the large terrapin was getting annoyed. “Who the hell are you, and what do you want with me,” Mikey retorted as he was getting up from the ground. “Listen pipsqueak, my name is Leonardo, but you may call me Leo,” Leo responded calmly as if he did not experience the chase of his life. “Ok Leo, well first of my name is not pipsqueak, shorty, or anything stupid like that,” Mikey rambled on. “My name is Michelangelo. But, you will call me Mikey, or I’ll kick your ass,” Mikey attempted to act tough towards a guy way stronger than him. Both turtles felt something in the air that wasn’t normal. It was as if the air was suffocating them; bringing them close together. “Ok Leo, you have to back up cuz you’re taking all the air in my bubble,” Mikey unconsciously took a step back. Leo didn’t seem phased with this, considering that this turtle was still young. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t tease the younger terrapin a little more. “Well I think most of the air is going to your brain, but it’s alright,” Leo saying it as nonchalantly as possible. “Hey! Watch your mouth,” Mikey was getting steamed by this. “Well I’m sorry if I offended you in any way Mikey,” Leo giving a signature smirk. Mikey felt in somewhat of a daze at the sound of Leo’s voice. “Wow, he’s sounds kinda...nice saying my name,” Mikey wondered. “Let’s get back to matters of business. Why did you steal oranges from Mr. Neko,” Leo interrogated, no mercy to give. “Listen here, Imperial guard, I did what I had to do to get food for my little ones,” Mikey felt the urge to kick Leo in the gut. “Wait a minute, little ones? Does this guy have kids? He seems unbelievably young to be a dad,” Leo questioned in his mind. Mikey saw Leo’s questioning stare, until it clicked to him. “Dude, they aren’t my kids, they are like my family,” Mikey quickly covered up the matter. “That now makes a lot of sense,” Leo feeling relieved. Why was he relieved? “Ok Mikey, just don’t do that again, and you won’t have to deal with me,” Leo looked down at Mikey, with a small laugh trying to escape. “Alright Pedo,” Mikey scampered away laughing. “I’m not a Pedo, you brat,” Leo yelled, then received complaints from the nearby vendors. Sunset was just dimming down, raising the moon up in it’s place. “I have to make it before the fire starts, otherwise I’m not going to get a good seat,” Mikey grumbled as he sprinted off to the beach to find his village mates. “Mikey! Michelangelo,” The villagers cheered. This was truly Mikey’s domain. “Ok people, I told you I wasn’t going to sing tonight,” Mikey replied in a raspy voice. It took him the whole week to practice that voice. Standing from a distance, once again was Leonardo, wondering where the racket was coming from. To his surprise, he saw the younger sea green turtle sitting in the circle of villagers. One of the villagers saw Leo from a distance, and dragged him into the group. To Mikey’s surprise, the older terrapin came forth. “Leo? What are you doing here,” Mikey questioned, shocked to see him at the bonfire. Leo’s initial reaction was seeing Mikey, with the glowing embers lighting his face. It was a sight for sore eyes. Shaking his head from the ridiculous thoughts, he proudly responded, “Well the rest of the village wanted me to sing, saying I looked like I had the vocals.” With a cocky smile, Mikey retorted, “oh yeah, why don't you put your money where your mouth is?” “You’re on, Mikey,” Leo’s smile broadened. He picked up the guitar one of the villagers brought along, getting ready for his performance. (play song link from the bottom) Jao Na Don’t go Tum Jo Ho Toh Gaa Rahi Hai Yeh Hawa… As You’re there the winds are singing Tum Jo Ho To Reshmi Si Hai Fiza… As You’re there the breeze has a silken touch Jao Na Don’t go Tum Jo Ho Toh Gaa Rahi Hai Yeh Hawa… As You’re there the winds are singing Tum Jo Ho To Reshmi Si Hai Fiza… As You’re there the breeze has a silken touch Jao Na Don’t go Ho… Phir Na Yeh Raat Aayegi This night won’t come again Phir Na Yeh Rut Chhayegi This atmosphere won’t be cast again Phir Na Yun Milna Hoga We won’t meet like this again Phir Na Jaane Kya Hoga… Who knows what will happen later Jao Na Don’t go This had the whole village standing up, swaying with the lyrics of the music, dancing with each other. Somehow Mikey felt drawn to Leo at that very moment. It wasn’t the fumes of the bonfire, or the way people were dancing. It was Leo’s own voice, so hypnotic yet soothing. It made the young terrapin sing along with Leo. The way both voices combined, it was like two star cross lovers hoping to come in contact. Mikey was taken aback; Leo was giving him a very airy feeling inside his heart. Leo at the same time, felt like his veins were pumping so much energy, that he was getting drunk off the lyrics of the song. By the time the song ended, Mikey was right next to Leo on the log. While everyone danced, Leo felt something very warm on his hand. Getting wide eyed, he looked down to find Mikey’s petite hand was on his own hand. Then a swirling feeling began in both of their souls, feeling energy clawing at their insides, begging for a way out. Before they could let go of each other’s hands, Mikey’s eyes turned white, making his eyes glow like the sun. A little girl saw what was taking place, and screamed on the top of her lungs. The villagers came into panic, screaming, “Bala! Bala! Cursed one, cursed one!” Bodies pushed each other, getting away from the beach, leaving just Leo and Mikey at the beach. Leo didn’t seem worried, but amused. He couldn’t believe what had just taken place. Mikey was reverting back to normal, feeling his own spirit come back. When he finally awoken, he saw Leo looking at him straight in the eyes. And, the one word that scared Mikey the most came from Leo. “My equal,” Leo looked at Mikey with affection in his eyes. Feeling his knees buckle, Mikey fell to the ground, tears dripping down his cheeks. “Why does this happen to me!” Mikey screamed to the world. His soul felt broken and without repair.

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Link to the song for the story: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmd2Un… I dont own the song, belongs to the movie What's your Raashee?

[that-wimpy-cowboy-doll]

@treaddelicately tagged me to post the last line I wrote for my WIP but the joke’s on you suckas because I’ve got two

From the upcoming chapter of how the faces of love have changed:

“How do we know that spaghettification will be enough to actually destroy the Stones?”

Tony heaves an exasperated sigh.  “It fucking better be.”

And because I’m back on my Kastle bullshit:

He has always fidgeted; there is a restlessness in his bones that extends beyond the twitch of his trigger finger.  But this restlessness is that of a wounded animal, searching the hospital room the way that a tiger searches its cage: for safety, for survival, for escape.

I will tag @snailsarecute @wheresarizona @emsondraeling @caffeinated-mcu and any of my other friends who would like to participate

[echoes-of-the-clockwork]

Deacon St. John || Ambush

A/n: By the way, I do have a Wattpad where you’ll find these stories, too. I literally just copy these from my drafts and post them here. Hope you all enjoy! Love you all!!! ••••••••••••••••••••

***HAS NOT BEEN PROOFREAD! PLEASE NOTIFY ME OF ANY ERRORS!!!***

***** Prompt: You and Deacon have been happily married for five years. Even when all hell broke loose, your love for one another remained intact. One day while on a supply run, the two of you are ambushed by a group of marauders. *****

~3rd Person POV~

"So, what's the plan?" (Y/n) questioned, waiting patiently on Deacon's bike as he filled the tank with gas. 

"Get in, get out. It's just a normal supply run, (Y/n)," he said, placing the jerrycan down beside the barrels of gasoline.

"Remember what Tucker said the last time we visited the Hot Springs? Y'know, about all the marauder activity recently in Belknap and how all their supply routes were ambushed?"

Deacon took one of his wife's hands in his, entwining their fingers together. "You worry too much."

"You," she used her other hand to poke him on the cheek. "Don't worry enough. Someone's gotta make up for all your carelessness. And who would be a better candidate than the woman you married, huh? Even Boozer is as careless as you sometimes! I can't believe you both are still alive with all the crazy shit you've done in the past two years."

A smirk crept across Deacon's face as he released her hand and mounted the bike. "Pretty sure you're the reason why we're still alive. All that nagging keeps our asses in check."

(Y/n) wrapped her arms around his waist with a scoff. "Why does that sound like and insult and compliment combined?"

"'Cause it is." Deacon revved the engine of his motorcycle, his smile widening. "Better hold on tighter. We're not stopping until we reach Belknap."

"I just hope this place you have in mind hasn't been raided yet," (Y/n) said, tightening her grip on the front of his shirt.

"I hope so, too." Deacon took off down the dirt trail of O'Leary Mountain, leaving the safehouse and Boozer behind.

The beautiful scenery of the mountain was plagued with the occasional dead corpse on the side of the trail and the groans of Freaks echoing through the trees.

Through the dark tunnel connecting Cascade to Belknap, a few Swarmers had chased them as Deacon carefully weaved the motorcycle between the vehicles.

Safely through the tunnel, they passed a NERO checkpoint as they made their way to Marion Forks. (Y/n) looked around and spotted a small glint. Before she could question what it was, they both were knocked off the bike. The motorcycle scraped against the asphalt, creating sparks.

"Get 'em!" A man shouted. Several men and women emerged from the shrubbery aligned on the side of the highway with melee weapons raised in the air.

(Y/n) struggled as she tried to get to her feet and defend herself from the approaching marauders. A little ways down the road, she saw a truck heading straight for them. "Deacon," she called out weakly to her husband.

At the sound of her feeble voice, Deacon managed to get to his feet just as four marauders surrounded him. He whipped out his pistol, killing three of them in a flash. He turned to take out the last man, but a rush of pain in his gut knocked the air out of his lungs. Hunched over in pain and desperately gasping for air, he watched as the rustic truck pulled to a stop in between him and (Y/n).

Four more marauders jumped out of the rickety vehicle. (Y/n) grabbed the knife concealed in her boot and swung it, but one man grabbed her arm and knocked the blade out of her hand. She tried to punch him, but another adversary grabbed her other arm. She struggled against them as they dragged her to the truck while cackling at the top of their lungs. "Let go of me, you bastards!" Swinging her legs, (Y/n) desperately tried to kick them.

"Knock 'er out, Ben!" One of the men restraining her demanded.

A younger man walked over with a wooden bat in his grasp. He didn't hesitate to swing the weapon and knock (Y/n) unconscious. The two men hauled her body into the backseat of the truck with a victorious chant. The remaining marauders hopped into the vehicle, but one had managed to strike Deacon in the spine with a metal pipe before hopping into the bed.

The drifter's entire body ached and he could barely move from the abuse. He managed to lift his head from the ground as the man behind the wheel lowered the window and grinned down at him menacingly. "This is what you fucking get for killing my friends, drifter. You want your girl back? Just try. You'll be dead before you can set foot in our camp. Sayonara, ya bastard!"

Deacon helplessly watched the truck disappear in the same direction it came from. With slightly shaky limbs, he pushed himself off the ground and to his bike. The engine was smoking, but he had just enough scrap to repair it. "You sons of bitches just wait. I'll kill every last one of you," he growled under his breath as he hauled his aching body onto the motorcycle.

Not wasting a single minute, Deacon pursued the marauders. Once leaving Marion Forks, he easily spotted the fresh tire tracks in the dirt and followed as fast as his bike could go. Unfortunately, his pursuit was halted when he spotted a horde making its way down the road. Confused as to why the large group of Swarmers were out during the day, he turned his bike around and searched for a place to hide. He was ill-equipped to take down a horde and had no other choice but to wait until they passed by.

Deacon found some foliage to hide in and parked his bike on the side of the road. He hid in the shrubbery and watched as the horde slowly made its way past him.

It felt like an entire hour crawled by before every last Swarmer passed him and headed further down the road. With an annoyed sigh, Deacon returned to his bike and searched for the tire tracks. However, all traces of the vehicle had been cleansed from the ground by the footprints of the horde. Desperate to save his wife, he searched for anything that could help him track the marauders who took her. Morosely, there was nothing. Gritting his teeth, he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Dammit!"

<————————————<<<<<<<<<<<<<

It had been a few hours since (Y/n) was captured by marauders. She recognized the area as Bear Creek Hot Springs, which wasn't very far from Marion Forks, but it was hidden along the base of the northern mountain range. They had tossed her in a small, makeshift prison beside a house. She had regained consciousness a few minutes ago with a splitting headache and a thick, dried streak of blood down the side of her face where the bat made contact with her skull. Now, she was pacing around in circles like a caged tiger.

None of the marauders had come to check on (Y/n), which made her happy to some extent. By what she could hear from a few women chatting just a few feet from the prison, Deacon was the intended target. Their laughter filled the air before their voices grew distant.

Suddenly, the door to the prison was unlocked and a smirking man stood on the other side as it swung open. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. His eyes raked across her body and a disgusted look appeared on (Y/n)'s face. She backed away from him, glaring sharply. "The hell do you want?"

"Nothing. Just sizing up the goods," he chuckled darkly. When his eyes spotted the diamond ring on her left hand, he guffawed in amusement. "You're married to that bastard? Ha! You're married to a murderer, you know that, sweetheart?"

"First of all," (Y/n) snarled. "Don't you fucking dare call me "sweetheart". And second, he's not a murderer. Last I checked, the only murderers here are you morons. Guess idiots of a feather really do flock together."

"You're the moron for not knowing the definition of murder," he scoffed. "Let me tell you about all the shit that fucking drifter has done."

(Y/n) patted the back of her head as she listened to the marauder insult Deacon. She discovered a hairpin in her (h/c) hair and gripped it between her fingers tightly. She waited for the perfect moment, pretending to listen to the man as he ranted. The second he stepped towards her with his hands resting by his sides, she lunges forward and plunges the hairpin into his eye. He let out a bloodcurdling scream before losing his balance and falling to the ground, curling up into a ball. "Look at the bright side—you can start wearing an eyepatch. Heard they kinda look badass."

(Y/n) stepped over the marauder's body and exited the prison. Fortunately for her, there were no men or women around to hear his painful wails. She snuck around the camp, searching for a way to escape. The dirt muffled her footsteps as she stealthily made her way out of the camp. Knowing exactly where she was, the woman headed back to Marion Forks in hopes to find some shelter from the approaching darkness of the night and a safe place away from Freakers. She even prayed she would reunite with Deacon, but she had no idea her husband was heading in the opposite direction.

<———————————<<<<<<<<<<<

"C'mon, Tuck. Someone must've seen something!" Deacon stalked after the old woman.

"Listen, Deek. I'm sorry for what happened to your wife, but no one knows where these assholes are camping out," Ada replied with a sigh. "You should know by now that people who are captured by marauders never return."

"If you think I'm gonna give up on (Y/n), you're fucking mistaken. She's my wife and I would do everything in my power to protect her. Someone in this damn camp must know something." Deacon left before Ada could respond and asked around the Hot Springs.

After stalking around the camp and asking around, Deacon stumbled upon Alkai. He placed his hands on the counter of the man's stall and leaned forward. "Problems aside, I know you've been on plenty of supply runs. And I know—"

Alkai interrupted the man before he could finish his sentence. "A few drifters arrived a couple days ago and reported spotting an ambush camp at Bear Creek Hot Springs. They said they were going to try and wipe them out, but they have yet to return."

"'Bout damn time someone told me something," Deacon sneered.

"You've got enough ammo to take down an entire camp of marauders?"

"Always do."

Deacon departed from the Hot Springs and headed north to Bear Creek as the moon rose into the sky, taking the place of the sun. It was dangerous at night, but the darkness would provide more cover for him to move through the ambush camp without being spotted.

Arriving at the camp, the drifter was shocked to find it was empty all except for two men. He crept closer to them, listening closely.

"Goddammit, Ben!" The man on the ground shouted as he covered his left eye.

"How the hell am I supposed to get it out?!" Ben yelled back. "Your eye is fucked!"

"No shit, Sherlock," the unnamed man grumbled.

Seeing as either man wasn't armed, Deacon grabbed his handgun and emerged from his hiding spot. He shoved the muzzle of the pistol into the back of Ben's head. "So you're Ben, huh? Heard your buddies shouting your name during the ambush."

Slowly, Ben stood up and stepped aside with his hands in the air. "H-Hey, listen, man. None of that shit was my idea! It was this asshole's plan!"

"I don't give a shit who's plan it was." Deacon pulled the trigger, a single bullet whizzing through the man's skull. "All I care about is killing you bunch of murderers and finding (Y/n)."

Stepping over the corpse, Deacon kneeled beside the man crumpled up on the ground. The object protruding from his eyes caused the drifter to smirk in amusement. "Pretty sure those don't go in your eye."

"Fuck off, drifter. That damn bitch of yours did this to me," he hissed.

"Never thought I would ever see someone use a hairpin as a weapon," Deacon guffawed. "(Y/n)'s just that resourceful."

The marauder on the ground grinned. "That fucking broad is gonna get what's coming to her. The entire camp went after her once they found out what she did."

Deacon's smirk morphed into a fierce glare. He grabbed the tip of the hairpin and tugged harshly, the marauder shrieking loudly form the rush of unbearable pain. "You gonna tell me where they went or am I gonna have to tear this hairpin out of your damn eye first?"

"M-Marion Forks!" The man wailed, his voice raspy from all the yelling.

The drifter released the hairpin and stood up. The man on the ground lifted his body slightly with a painful and confused expression. "You're not gonna shoot me?"

"No." Deacon holstered his firearm, stepping closer to the assailant. "I'm gonna slam that hairpin further into your skull." He stomped his foot directly on the hairpin, pushing it further into the marauder's eye. His shrill cries echoed throughout the camp, but he suddenly fell silent. The drifter didn't bother to check to see if the man was still alive, but he would succumb to his injury soon and perish.

When Deacon arrived in Marion Forks, he spotted the familiar white truck parked by the church. The center of town was crawling with marauders as they searched the buildings. He armed himself with his boot knife and crept around the town, taking down any marauders he could while searching for (Y/n).

"Come on out! We know you're here!" One woman yelled as she searched the gas station alongside a couple of her companions. Deacon circled around around the gas station, avoiding their line of sight and making his way across the street to Hungry Jim's. He jumped through a broken window and landed on the shards of glass. The small noise caused him to freeze and he heard something skittering behind the counter. Gripping his knife tightly, he snuck further into the restaurant, keeping his head low.

Rounding the counter, he spotted droplets of blood leading to the kitchen. Deacon followed the trail out the rear entrance of the restaurant and to a car located in the parking lot. Peering through the foggy window and into the backseat, he saw a figure laying down. Opening the door, he realized it was (Y/n). His heart raced as the sudden click of the door opening startled her and she bolted out the other door thinking he was a marauder. She fell out of the car and on the asphalt, small pebbles digging into her palms.

Deacon swiftly maneuvered to the other side of the vehicle to stop her from running. "Hey, hey, it's me." He squatted down in front of her, obscuring the only escape route she had. He grabbed her wrists in his hands and whispered gently to calm her down. "It's me, sweetheart."

(Y/n) inhaled a shaky breath as she registered Deacon's voice. "Oh, god, Deacon." The moment he released her wrists, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him. "I thought you were one of them."

"You... stabbed a guy in the eye with a hairpin?" He questioned as he held her body flush against his his.

"Uh, yeah." (Y/n) pulled away slightly to meet Deacon's gaze. "A little gruesome, but it gave me the chance I needed to escape."

The sound of approaching footsteps startled the couple. Deacon was the first to act and dragged (Y/n) down to the ground to hide from the marauder. He held her in his arms, taking cover behind the car. They listened to the marauder approach the vehicle, but their footsteps suddenly stopped on the other side. "There's no one fucking here!" The marauder suddenly shouted.

"Keep lookin'! There's no way in hell she could've made it far," a woman yelled back.

The second the man turned and headed back towards the rear entrance of Hungry Jim's, (Y/n) wiggles out of Deacon's arms and pilfers the knife from his boot. She crept after the man and followed him into the kitchen where she rammed the blade into the enemy's back, causing him to scream out as he fell to the floor. He turned his head to look over his shoulder. "You bitch!"

(Y/n) leaned down and yanked the blade from his back with a smirk. "It's a shame I don't have another hairpin. Enjoy bleeding out."

The man screamed as loud as he could, luring all the marauders to the restaurant. The (h/c)-haired woman rushed back to where she left her husband. Deacon was still crouched behind the car, watching the marauders storm into Hungry Jim's. "Let's get the hell outta here," he mumbled to her.

"Lead the way."

<———————————————<<<<<<<<<<<

"You both look like shit," Boozer commented when they arrived back at the safehouse the next morning.

"Nice to see you, too, buddy," (Y/n) snorts with laughter.

"What happened out there? I thought you'd be back before nightfall."

"One word—marauders," Deacon replied. "Bastards ambushed us on the highway. Remind me to return later on this week to kill the rest of 'em."

"Do we have anything for a headache?" The woman inquired, placing a hand against her pulsating head.

"There's some in the watchtower," Boozer responds before turning towards his bike. "I'm heading out to trade with Cope. Maybe we can get our hands on some more fish."

"Alright, Boozeman. Be careful," Deacon said. He looked over his shoulder to ask (Y/n) a question, but he saw she was making her way up the watchtower and followed. At the top, he watched her scrounge around for the medicine.

A dizzy spell caused (Y/n) to lose her footing, but she managed to catch herself before she fell. "Ugh, dammit..." Lowering her hand from her forehead, the blood on her fingertips caused her to grimace. "Why did it have to be a baseball bat?"

Deacon quickly rushed to her aid and caught her before she fell to the floor. He supported her body and guided her towards the small bed they shared. "You need to sit down and relax." He placed her on the bed gently before bending down to examine the wound on her head. Blood trickled down the side of her face, adding to the blood that had dried hours ago. He searched for a clean rag, medicine, and water.

Dabbing the cut along her hairline, he gripped the bottle of pills tightly. The plastic bent in his grasp, the top threatening to pop off from the pressure. "What else did they do?"

(Y/n) couldn't help but smirk at the question she thought he would've asked her hours ago. "And here comes the worrywart." She placed a hand against his cheek once he was done cleaning the wound. Her smirk transformed into a gentle smile. "Besides a bat to the head, nothing." She dropped her hand and patted the space next to her. 

Deacon sat beside (Y/n) on the bed and handed over the medicine. "You're out of commission until I say you aren't."

She swallowed the pill with a raised brow. Once the medicine slid down her throat, she spoke. "We've been married for five years, Deek. Haven't you learned anything?"

"Even if you beg me with those damn puppy dog eyes, I'm not changing my mind," he declared.

"I've more control over you than you know. I can change your mind. It's like flipping a coin—easy and simple," (Y/n) grinned.

A smug grin etched across the man's face. "Whatever you say." When Deacon saw she was about to stand up, he snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her onto the bed. She gasped in surprise when the world around her spun and when her vision steadied, she was laying beside him. "For now, we're gonna get some rest."

The bed was small, but it provided enough room for them both. (Y/n) rested her head on Deacon's chest, his heartbeat lulling her to sleep. "Didn't realize how tired I was until now."

Deacon combed his fingers through her soft, (h/c) locks. He continued his ministrations, glancing down at her face and watching her blink tiredly. "We're taking the entire day off."

"Agreed," (Y/n) smiled, closing her eyes and welcoming slumber with open arms.

[maxtothemax]

The Angel on your shoulder has a knife behind her back - a Maximum Ride fanfic

I wrote a little something based on this post I made about an AU where Angel and Gazzy are twins, but Gazzy’s name is changed to Damien for that angel/devil dynamic. Except that as they grow up, Angel becomes a lot less of an angel.

-

Damien always knew Angel best. Of course he did; she was his twin, his other half--his better half, everyone joked. She was the sweet one, the one who refused to go to bed until she kissed the whole flock goodnight, who cried when she got hurt or when anyone else got hurt. She made everyone smile--could even make Fang smile. She was the only one Damien had never pulled a prank on. He couldn’t stand seeing her upset.

Damien found himself thinking sometimes that he wouldn’t seem so bad if Angel wasn’t around. Jeb used to reassure him that he wasn’t bad, that his former nickname of “Demon” didn’t affect who he was as a person. It was hard to really believe that, though, especially when he was standing next to Angel. On those days when he felt particularly bad, jealousy and resentment swirled within him, even just looking at her--but he always managed to swallow it down. He could never stay mad at her.

The flock was his family, but he still loved Angel best. Everyone else did, too.

-

Looking back, Damien blamed it all on the School, although he couldn’t quite convince himself that was the reason Angel changed. It occurred to him that maybe she never did change. She was always that way; she was just waiting for her chance. Her chance to gain power. It seemed dramatic for a six-year-old, but Damien couldn’t imagine any other reason she’d...

She was different, after they got her back from the School. Quiet, at first. The flock doted on her, and slowly she seemed more normal. Only Damien noticed that different look in her eyes. Detachment. Not in a vacant, haunted way, like he’d expected. It was a cold look, like she was above everything, everyone, else.

She stopped spending as much time with him. No one else noticed, so despite how much it hurt him, he never brought it up.

The rest of the flock did notice Angel pushing her boundaries. Max reprimanded her for “influencing” a woman to buy her a stuffed bear. Reprimanded her, but nothing else. Celeste the bear became a permanent fixture in Angel’s arms, like a trophy. Damien couldn’t help thinking if anyone else had some something like that, if he’d stolen so much as a Lego figure or Nudge had stolen the stuffed tiger she’d been fawning over--because that’s what Angel did, she stole--Max would have made them return it, and they’d never hear the end of it. But this was Angel, and Angel could make puppy-dog eyes at anyone and get what she wanted--or, scarier, just make someone do what she wanted.

It happened again and again: when she got to keep Total, when she made that FBI agent stop asking her questions, when she ran into the president on a field trip and “influenced” him.

She stopped being Damien’s other half.

But Damien still knew Angel best.

-

Over the weeks, Angel had stopped interacting with the flock much. Max worried over it, said she was “withdrawn,” except every time someone asked if Angel was okay, Angel always replied with a cheery, convincing, “I’m fine.” Almost always cheery, but Damien picked up on the occasional irritation in her voice. Occasional, and then more frequent.

One night Damien awoke to the sound of bickering and lay still, pretending to be asleep.

“--don’t know how I didn’t notice, but you can’t just leave in the middle of the night, Angel.” It was Iggy’s voice, quiet so he wouldn’t wake the others. He was the one on watch.

“I was safe,” came Angel’s dismissive reply.

“Where did you even go?” Iggy demanded.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Iggy scoffed. “’Don’t worry about it’? Angel--”

Her voice stayed perfectly calm. “I’m going back to sleep now. You’re going to forget you ever saw me awake. Okay?”

There was a beat of silence, and then a flat, emotionless version of Iggy’s voice replied, “Okay.”

Damien squeezed his eyes shut, heart pounding, as Angel settled into her spot next to him. His back was turned to her, but he heard her whisper to him through the dark, “No one will ever believe you.”

He didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, and he knew she knew it.

-

Damien thought about telling Max anyway, even though she wouldn’t want to believe Angel did anything bad. He worried over it all morning, almost telling her a dozen times.

Then the Erasers came, and he had bigger things to worry about.

The fight was less of a fight than usual--the Erasers didn’t seem to want to cause damage. Or, at least, they’d been ordered not to cause damage. It wasn’t long before Damien felt the prick of a needle in his arm, and leaden exhaustion followed. Before everything went dark, as he lay on the ground barely able to keep his eyes open, he saw Angel. She stood in the midst of the fight, completely unscathed.

She was smiling.

-

The metal grate pressing against Damien’s back told him where he was before he even opened his eyes. He sat up, and his head almost hit the top of the dog crate. Everyone else was either already awake or just waking up. He could see everyone else, each member of the flock in one of the four crates surrounding him. Only four.

Guess who was missing.

Max groaned, trying to hide her panic. “Angel--oh, not again...”

Damien swallowed the lump in his throat. “Max,” he began softly, “I don’t think--”

He cut himself off as the door opened. The flock all turned to see Angel in the doorway, unharmed, smiling as sweetly as ever. Standing behind her was Jeb.

“Angel!” Max gasped, relieved. But Angel didn’t react, and Max frowned uneasily as she took in the unnerving calm on Angel’s face. “...Angel?”

Angel studied the flock in much the same way a child might contemplate a butterfly whose wings they were about to rip off. “What’s the matter? You didn’t expect me to betray you?”

“Betray us? What the hell are you talking about?” Iggy demanded.

Jeb put a hand on Angel’s shoulder. Mere months ago she would have flinched away, but now she didn’t even react. “Angel has agreed to work with us rather than against us,” said Jeb. “I don’t suppose any of you would like to make the sensible choice and join her?”

Nudge already had tears in her eyes. “How could you?”

The look on Angel’s face hardened. “I’m tired of running, and I’m tired of feeling powerless. Plus, you’re all way too easy to manipulate.” The flock stared in enraged silence as she crossed the room, stopping in front of Damien’s crate. She peered down at him with a troubled frown. “Except you.”

Damien sat there with his fists clenched and glared up at her. Blood rushed to his face, but all the scathing remarks swirling around his head died in his throat. All this time, he was right. She’d been acting different and no one else wanted to accept it, but he’d noticed from the moment she changed.

Angel was also right: no one would believe him. No one did believe him, not until the evidence was staring them in the face.

In the end, Angel straightened up, shrugged, and turned her back on him. The smirk in her voice was audible. “Well, you always knew me best.”

-

The rest of it was a blur of grief and anger and fear. Damien hardly remembered it; it wasn’t important. The only detail that stuck out was that spark of hope that Angel wasn’t really on the whitecoats’ side, that she would come back to them and they could all laugh at the idea that she would ever betray them. The rest of the flock had that hope. Damien didn’t.

The escape happened much the same way it always did: breaking out of the cages, dodging or fighting whitecoats and Erasers, taking flight into the clear, open sky. The only thing different this time was the flock’s reluctance to fly too far, too fast. They kept glancing back. Hoping.

But Damien always knew Angel best, so he kept his eyes forward, knowing his other half was gone for good.

[tristis-333]

Ideas for Shadows of the Phantom thieves

So I’ve been replaying Persona 5 A LOT in anticipation for Royal coming out next year. So I’ve been thinking a lot about what P5 would have been like if it had went the P4 route of having the main group going against their own personal shadows. I’ve seen a few ideas swimming around but I thought I’d share my own ideas on what the shadows of the P5 cast would have been like. Some of the themes they all have is that these shadows would be distortion forced on the cast by the world around them. They aren’t like P4 shadows where the cast has to learn to accept their shadows as a part of themselves but rather realize that the shadows isn’t their true self and that its just a distortion. They are also are all based around the seven deadly sins. It kind of bothers me that most of the palaces in p5 are just loosely based on the seven deadly sins. Really only Kamoshida, and shido fit their sins for me. Madarame is supposed to be vanity which isn’t even a capitol sin anymore and just redundant with pride. Kaneshiro is supposed to gluttony but with the bank theme he fits greed better. Likewise Okumura is supposed to be greed but he runs a food company so gluttony would have fit better. Sae isn’t so much envious of anyone as she is obsessed with winning. So I’ll be making each shadow more overtly themed around the sins.

The first palace would be Ryuji’s representing the sin of wrath. It would be a ship lost as sea in the middle of a storm, representing his electric element. His shadow in the captain of the ship, a blood thirsty pirate obsessed with pillaging and causing destruction. The shadow would have a peg leg representing Ryuji’s broken leg, and an eye patch with a skull and crossbones on it. As you go through the palace you’ll have to dodge cannon fire, and lightning strikes. The boss would be similar to an early concept of Captain Kidd, with the upper body trapped in a cage with a blade in its mouth. The peg leg has become a cannon and will fire at its ultimate attack. After the battle Ryuji confronts the shadow, saying even thought he acted in anger when he hit Kamoshida, he’s not the thug everyone has painted him to be. He might be mad, but he’ll aim that anger at the people who deserve it and not just thrash around hurting the people around him. Ryuji then rips the eyepatch off the shadow and the shadow becomes Captain Kidd and the eye patch becoming Ryuji’s mask.

 The next palace would be Ann’s representing the sin of lust. The palace is a brothel with Ann’s shadow as the Madam of the house. The shadow wears a low cut dress and a large leopard spotted furcoat with a cigarette holder, think Cruella De Vil. The shadow also wears a lace and silk mask. The shadow is very flirtatious and makes claims that her body “is yours to take”.  When you go through the palace you’ll meet the cognition of Shiho, who is the shadow’s “best girl”. The shadow throws Shiho to costumers of the brothel so she doesn’t have to get her hands dirty. The shadow accuses Ann of doing the same with the real Shiho, throwing her to Kamoshida so she wouldn’t have to “give up the goods”. The boss form would be of Carmen’s main body tied to the same post Kamoshida had Ann tied to. Roses and thorns cover her body like a revealing dress and she can summon “gentlemen” to assist her in battle. After she’s defeated Ann confronts the shadow and acknowledges that what happened to her and Shiho isn’t her fault. Her appearance is not an excuse for the way Kamoshida treated them, and she certainly didn’t abandon Shiho. Her body is hers and she’ll do with as she pleases. She rips the silk mask off the shadow, allowing the Shadow to become Carmen, and the silk mask turns into Ann’s.

 The next palace is Yusuke’s representing greed. His palace is a museum ,very similar to Madarame’s except where Madarame’s museum was flashy and gaudy Yusukes is broken down and filthy. The windows are broken and open to the cold so as you go through the palace you’ll have to be careful of being blown away but gust of wind and frozen from the cold. Yusuke’s shadow is a shogun like Madarame’s but his make up is run down by tears. The shadow is stuck in artist rut and spends its time trying to make art. It doesn’t do this for the sake of art, but it wants income. It is desperate to cover the windows and to block out the cold but any art it tries to produce is meaningless and poorly crafted. The boss form is the portrait of Yusuke Madarame had in his palace but Yusuke’s face is stuck in the face of The Scream by Edvarch Munch. Yusuke confronts the shadow and his fear that he’ll lose sight of why he became an artist. While he may struggle to support himself he will persevere and continue to pursue true beauty in his art. He wipes the make-up off the Shadow with his hand and the shadow becomes Goemon, and the make-up on his palm becomes his mask.

Next palace is Makoto’s representing Envy. Makoto palace is a train station with her as station master. She wears a uniform and pair of tinted glasses. Despite the title, Makoto’s shadow has no control over anything that happens in the station. The trains depart without her approval and she has no choice but to follow the predetermined schedule. She is envious of the thieves who are free to come and go as they please. She feels much like a train. Impressive in its own right, but stuck on a track she can never escape from. The boss form is that of demon train with Johana’s face enraged and blindfolded. Makoto faces the shadow and vows that she will no longer allow others to control the path of her life but will decide it for herself. She takes the glasses from the shadow and crushes them in her hands. The shadow becomes Johana and the broken glasses become Makoto’s mask.

Next is Futaba’s palace representing Sloth. This one remains relatively the same only Futaba’s shadow is much more hostile. Her design now has more bandages like a mummy with them covering her face leaving only her eyes exposed. The shadow is now the distortion of Futaba’s memories and fully believes she’s responsible for her mother’s death. She wishes to just lie down and rot away, to be left to die in her tomb. Instead of fighting Futaba’s cognition of her mother, you fight the shadow. It takes the form of a large sarcophagus with a gargoyle face, and tentacles trying to push themselves out from the edge. Futaba confronts her shadow after the battle and it plays out much the same as in the original. She unwraps the bandages from her shadow’s face and the shadow becomes Necronomicon and the bandages become Futaba’s mask.

Next is Haru’s palace representing gluttony. The palace is a wedding venue being held in a giant wedding cake. You’ll have to make your way up the stacks of the cake to face Haru’s shadow who is the bride at the top. Haru’s shadow wears a wedding dress with a veil covering her face. Haru’s shadow sees herself not as bride, but as a gift to the groom. She exists to be given away and she’s fine with that so long as she can indulge in the pleasures her life gives her, even if that pleasure comes at the expense of her father’s workers. The bride gorges on wedding cake and ignores the cries of the workers and guest who suffer at the hands of her father and betrothed. The boss form is giant empty wedding dress bound in ribbons and bows like a gift. Since the dress is empty, there is no head instead a large ribbon. When Haru confronts the shadow she vows to not ignore her father’s corruption, or to allow herself to be used as a bargaining chip. She tears the veil away from the bride and it becomes Milady and the veil becomes her mask.

Last is Morgana representing pride. Since Morgana was created in Mementos it serves as his palace so to speak. When you reach the beginning of the end of Mementos, a yellow eye morgana is waiting for you. It reveals that Morgana is not a human but, as it puts it, a creature born within Mementos. Morgana is unable to handle the idea that he’s some creature, a beastly thing with no semblance of humanity. His pride won’t allow him to accept it. He pleads that he has to be human. He tries to summon Zorro to destroy the other Morgana but Zorro loses control and begins to shift and change. It takes the form a large black tiger with velvet blue stripes. It is chained around the neck and guards the gates to the depths of Mementos. The thieves manage to defeat it and Morgana reclaims his memory finally. He manages to find peace with his existent, not human, but not some wild creature either. The beast shift back into Zorro, but then immediately becomes Mercurius.    

So those are my ideas for the shadows of the phantom thieves. The protagonist doesn’t get one as ,like with P4’s protagonist and Adachi, I feel the role of the protagonist’s “shadow” goes to Akechi as he represents a lot of the opposites to Joker. But what do you guys think?

[shirtlesssammy]

14x10: Nihilism

Then:

Son of a bitch. Michael’s back.

Now:

Welcome to tonight’s AU fanfic entitled:

Dean’s living the contented life running a bar (I’ve read this fic before, but I’m intrigued) listening to The Marshall Tucker Band’s “Searching for a Rainbow” (the BIGGEST EYEBALLS EMOJI), and working with Pamela Barnes! (Wha!?!!! Yay!!!) This bar had a squirrel and a moose and the monkey from The Roadhouse and the Impala’s old license plate and “Daphne Loves Fred” engraved on the bar. Here’s a great breakdown of the bar from @bluestar86. There’s a lot here, guys. This is a Jerry Wanek deserves all the accolades and attention possible blog. Pamela and Dean discuss where Sam and Cas are (hunting a ghoul in Wichita) when a businesswoman with a briefcase arrives. Apparently she’s been trying to buy the bar from Dean, but he’s not selling. 

The woman storms out back into the rain. (About that rain: I loved this post by @postmodernmulticoloredcloak)

Later, Dean’s doing paperwork in his office (WHAT A CUTE, RESPONSIBLE NERD). Pamela comes in with a couple of shots and THIS exchange happens:

Pamela: I’m heading out for a hot date.

Dean: How come you always have a boyfriend?

Pamela: How come you only want what you can’t have?

Dean: Whoa.

Pamela: Besides, you don’t want me. You just like to flirt. I’m a psychic, so I kinda know.

That was a lot to process in 30 seconds and then we’re all blindsided by Pamela’s arm? Not cool show.

Later, Dean is pulling some Texan Beer (just go read all tagged posts by @mittensmorgul) from the walk-in fridge when Pamela alerts him to trouble: Vamps are at the bar.

They make fast order of the situation and in a moment I found quite touching, Pamela starts to clear the blood off of Dean’s face, and he lets her. And I just want Dean to know how much he can be loved and cared for if he’s just let someone (*cough* CAS *cough*) do it.

This whole scene almost made me forget that THIS ISN'T REAL. After the title screen, we’re back in St. Louis, Michael is possessing Dean, and his fingersnap that we all thought would end the world, just updated his clothes to a snappy suit. Michael is so extra.

He grandstands a bit and tells Sam, Cas, and Jack that he knew their plans the whole time. Cas starts to run at Michael, giving Sam time to Molotov Cocktail him, allowing Cas to throw the archangel cuffs on Michael. Whew, Team Free Will, they really are better together. Sam pleads with Dean to hear him, but Michael mocks, “Dean’s not home right now. Please leave a message.” Meanwhile, Michael’s monsters are out in the city attacking and building an army. Maggie and the other hunters check in. They need to save other people. Sam, Cas, and Jack are on their own.  

Monsters arrive before they can make their escape from the highrise. Cas can only hold the door for so long. Jack asks Sam if they’re going to die here. Sam pauses, but it gives him an idea. He calls for Jessica, the reaper. Violet arrives instead. It seems the reapers have to take shifts on monitoring the Winchesters.

Sam begs for her help, and Jack and Cas wonder who he’s talking to. They can’t see her. There’s some back and forth, and Violet appears to have a silent conversation, and without a word transports them all back to the bunker. (BILLIE! She’s got a soft spot for the Winchesters. Ok, not really, she just knows way too fucking much and it’s stressing her out.)

They wrap Michael up in chains in the war room and discuss the details of how to hold him. He informs them that he can hear them, so they move 2 feet further away from him. (I’m pretty sure he can still hear you. He is a celestial being.) Sam brings up when Crowley busted into his head when Gadreel was possessing him. Maggie calls before they can formulate a plan. The monsters have left St. Louis and are heading for Lebanon. (Sidenote: I am so creeped out how Michael says “Castiel”.)  Cas and Jack head off to secure the bunker, while Sam stays and listens to Michael mock that it’s just a matter of time before he escapes and everybody dies.

Sam pulls out the British Men of Letters mind meld machine. It’s their only hope to get in Dean’s mind and alert him to what’s happening. Cas agrees.

Meanwhile, Dean continues to relive the same moments at Rocky’s Bar over and over. (Seriously depressing Mystery Spot FEELS.)

Jack is left with Michael while Sam and Cas set up the machine. This is the perfect opportunity for Michael to place the seeds of doubt in Jack about how Dean feels about him, and Jack’s place in their lives. “You’re not Sam, you’re not Cas. You’re a new burden that he was handed.” UGH. Cas interrupts, and stops Jack --making it clear that Jack shouldn’t believe a word Michael says. Jack doesn’t look him in the eye before walking away.

Meanwhile, Maggie and the other hunters are preparing to stop the onslaught of monsters.

It’s now Cas’s turn to listen to Michael’s taunts. He doesn’t bite as easy. They exchange barbs about loyalty and weakness. All AU!Michael and Lucifer wanted was for Chuck to return, and he didn’t. So now Michael just wants to “burn every one of his little worlds” until he finds him. Michael reveals that he wants to kill God. Story aside: How crackling was this scene between Misha and Jensen? Even with ZERO sexual tension, they cannot turn off their chemistry. It was beautifully shot (Bravo Amanda Tapping!) and mesmerizing to watch.

The other hunters lose track of the monsters. One hunter, Tiger, runs into the woods alone. It’s all good though! He’s fine and alerts everyone that the monsters went around them, heading for the bunker.

At the bunker, while Sam preps the machine, Jack wonders if this’ll work, and then offers to use his life-saving magic. NO BBY JACK.

Later, Sam and Michael are all plugged in.

Cas is going to mind-meld with Sam to hitch a ride. Jack is going to watch over them, making sure no one kills them.

Sam and Cas find themselves in a place astonishingly reminiscent of the Empty. It’s Dean’s mind, but he’s a no show.

Cas uses his power to scan Dean’s mind. It’s mostly just...screaming and pain. “There’s so much trauma,” Cas notes, traumatically. Having to hear the love of his life Dean in pain is hard, but the worst part is that there are so many awful memories they’ll have to sort through to find the real Dean. That’ll take time. Sam has a different theory. He thinks that Michael would swaddle Dean in something good because “Dean thrives on trauma.” Inspired, Cas begins searching for good memories and quickly locks on to the bar.

They zap to the bar, only to be confronted by the soft twang of music and Dean’s jovial greeting. Dean shills for Jensen’s beer company (which is, frankly, AHdorable) while Pamela warmly greets Cas and Sam. Both of them immediately swap stories about how they done Pamela wrong (burned out her eyes / got her killed by a demon). Oh. Bbys. 

Sam tries to convince Dean that he’s living in a fantasy when Dean and Pamela zap out of there, cutting to one of their other canned scenes. The memories get increasingly choppy as Sam and Cas threaten Dean’s fake reality. Soon enough, they’re both bloodied bystanders of Dean’s monster bar fight.

For Nice Work, Special Effects Department Science:

Dean’s head is still sticking with the script, though and Pamela attributes Cas and Sam’s new blood spatters as leftover from their ghoul hunt.

Sam’s getting kind of fed up and reminds Dean of how Pamela was blinded. RUDE. Moments later, Pamela turns to them, eyes white in their sockets, claiming she’s been blind for ages. “You can thank Feathers here for that one.” (Cas looks mortified and tells Dean it was an accident. CAS BBY.) And then Dean remembers she died and she disappears.

“This is the dream!” Dean protests. Cas begs him to remember his real life and come back to them.

“Poughkeepsie,” Sam whispers suddenly after a long, searching look. Memories rush back to Dean.

“I remember,” Dean says. “I remember everything.”

Suddenly, off to the side Michael slow claps. Ugh. Go away, Michael.

He proceeds to tell veiled lies. Dean only tolerates “the angel” because he “gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.” As for Sam, he was a burden well shed when he went off to college. Dean looks utterly perplexed by these stories.

Cas realizes that Michael’s stalling so his monster army can attack the bunker. Speaking of which...outside of Dean’s head the bunker door swings open and Maggie & Company rush inside. They start to lock down the bunker.

This is all okay. It’s FINE! Because Dean’s ready to take on Michael, given that Michael’s totally depowered inside Dean’s mind.

And then...it all goes to hell. In the bunker, monsters slam against the door but the bunker’s locked down. They should be safe there for a while! HOWEVER Tiger, one of the AU hunters, went into the woods alone and emerged a monster. The bunker door is actually unlocked and everyone in the bunker start to fight for their lives.

The hunters engage in a fruitless firefight against the mostly immune monsters and it’s looking like they’ll lose when…

Jack taps into his soul and zaps away some of his soul’s energy. Oh Jack. :(

Back in Dean’s head, he hits upon a brainstorm (har har?) and tells Michael that he’ll lock him up inside his own mind. He tries to shove Michael into a walk-in refrigerator and fails. Never fear, though. Because Team Free Will is here! Sam and Cas team up to trap Michael in the fridge and Dean slams home a locking pin. “I’m the cage,” Dean growls and my face melts off.

In the aftermath of the fight, Maggie promises to help clean up the mess from the fight and Sam thanks her. In the kitchen, Cas has a serious conversation with Jack. It’s 40% angry and 60% worried.

Cas tries to help Jack understand that the soul makes him who he is and he needs to protect it. “It won’t happen again,” Jack tells him and UUUUUUUGH it’s totally going to happen again oh NOOOO.

Meanwhile, Michael pounds and screams inside Dean’s head while Dean hunches over the sink in front of his mirror. “It’s only you,” he begins. “It’s all you.”

Suddenly, Billie appears.

For Science:

She knows about Michael throwing the equivalent of 80,000 keggers in Dean’s head. She tells him that Dean’s universe-crossing hijinks have delivered nothing but pain. She reminds Dean of the many notebooks describing how he might die. Since Dean’s possession, all the books have been rewritten to show Michael escaping his brain-cage and destroying the world. Actually, correction: all but one have been rewritten. She hands him a single volume. Dean opens it and….we have no idea what’s inside. 

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Dean asks, looking shocked.

“That’s up to you,” Billie tells him cooly before flapping away.

Where Everybody Quotes Your Name:

How come you only want what you can’t have?

It’s a big trunk.

The worst part of workin’ here is having to clean up the blood after some pissed off monster busts in to kill you.

What can I say? I’m famous.

Put a chair against the door. That’ll help.

You’re confusing loyalty and compassion with weakness.

Get me a shot WITH YOUR BRAIN.

My mind. My rules.

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[lawisnotmocked]

Inktober 2018

I was looking for an inktober prompt list before inktober started but I couldn’t find one I liked so I made my own! This list uses quotes from Les Miserables (both book and musical) where animal symbolism is used as the prompt for each day (because I love Hugo’s animal symbolism and I will Never Shut Up About It). Absolutely feel free to use this inktober prompt list yourself and also feel free to mix it up or pick a few. All I ask is that you reblog this post! I’ve listed the chapters and songs the quotes have been taken from in case people wanted context for the prompt but using it without context is also fine! Books quotes have been taken mostly from both the Denny and Hapgood translations.

1.       Become a thief in the night, become a dog on the run (Valjean’s soliloquy)

2.       What a good-natured bear! (1.5.3)

3.       It may be of this very flock of wolves that Jesus has constituted me the shepherd (1.1.7)

4.       He escaped impetuously, like the wolf who finds his cage open (1.2.7)

5.       When he laughed, he was a tiger (1.5.5)

6.       Dog son of a wolf (1.5.5)

7.       It is our conviction that if souls were visible to the eyes, we should be able to see distinctly that strange thing that each one individual of the human race corresponds to some one of the species of the animal creation (1.5.5)

8.       Could draw a silk-worm moth from memory (3.4.1)

9.       The furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering (1.2.11)

10.   Something of the wild beast developed in her (1.5.10)

11.   The tigers come at night, with their voices soft as thunder (I dreamed a dream)

12.   A hound which scents a wolf in sheep’s clothing (1.5.7)

13.   He had the sharp stare of a weasel (2.3.2)

14.   She was known locally as l’Alouette, the Lark (1.4.3)

15.   When the bloodhound must turn magistrate (1.5.3)

16.   The angel with swan’s wings and the angel with eagle’s wings (3.4.1)

17.   Climbing the rigging with the agility of a wildcat (2.2.3)

18.   A Nest for Owl and a Warbler (2.4.1)

19.   In the posture of the jackal he resembled (2.1.19)

20.   In this nest of whores and vipers let one speak who saw it all (Fantine’s arrest)

21.   The toad always has his eyes fixed on heaven. Why? In order to watch the bird in its flight (3.4.1)

22.   The manoeuvre of the hunted stag (2.5.1)

23.   The keenness of a fox scenting a covey of partridges (2.3.10)

24.   Suddenly encountering a tiger in the dark (2.4.5)

25.   I’m the daughter of a wolf (4.8.4)

26.   A lion submitting to the claws of a lynx (5.3.9)

27.   The mouse has caught the cat (4.12.7)

28.   The humiliated and furious attitude of the wolf who has been caught by a sheep (4.4.2)

29.   As silently as if he walked on tiger’s paws (5.3.8)

30.   On two legs a bourgeois, and on four legs a tabby cat (3.4.1)

31.   It’s a world where the dog eats the dog (Dog eats dog)